FORSYTH COUNTY, Ga. — Answering phone calls inside the Forsyth County 911 Center isn't an easy job. The employees never know what they'll hear on the other side of the line.
"People don't call us on their best days," said Casey Waters, a training and recruitment specialist for the 911 center. "We're always getting people having bad days. It's long, but it's rewarding in a lot of ways as well."
Waters said they get a lot of medical calls, in addition to road rage incidents and crashes. Some of them stick with her.
"(I had a) hysterical caller. Her husband collapsed during dinner and she said he's not breathing. I can't feel a pulse," Waters recalled. "We immediately started CPR. She's the true rock star in this situation, but we worked on that until the officer got on scene and hooked an AED up to him."
The man walked out of a hospital eight days after Waters took that call in March.
"They just had a grandbaby," Waters said. "Knowing that every day he gets to hold that grandbaby and I had a part of that is amazing."
Those stories inspire Waters and her coworkers to keep going. In December, the county added a 'Tree of Life' mural inside the Forsyth County Public Safety Complex as a visual reminder of the importance of the work inside the 911 Center.
"We don't always get the recognition here behind the fire, EMS, the sheriff's office and the law enforcement agencies," operations manager Jill Spence said. "It starts with us. We're the true first responders."
She put a leaf on the tree in June after she successfully walked a caller through CPR.
"This is the first one that I've ever actually known that I did save a life," Spence said. "I got to put a leaf on the tree and we get to see it every day that we come in here."
There are six total leaves on the tree so far, but they're looking forward to seeing it grow.
"If you just come through here, you're like, 'Wow, that's that's a lot,'" Spence said. "We're saving more and more every day."