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Midtown Atlanta shootings: 911 dispatchers speak of taking the calls for help, and racing to save lives

“I mean, that's our job. To save as many lives as possible.”

ATLANTA — The many heroes of Wednesday's shooting in Atlanta include the city’s E-911 dispatchers.

They’re the ones who received first word of the shootings, and sent immediate help, racing against time to save lives.

Life and death were in the balance in that Midtown Atlanta office tower when shots were fired on the 11th floor. Seconds later, Atlanta E-911 Senior Dispatcher Brenda Ross-Byrom answered her phone.

“The lady, she was just screaming and saying she heard like 6 to 7 shots fired outside of the office,” Ross-Byrom said Thursday. “So I immediately asked her for the address... and she said it was several shots, and she was just screaming, just screaming.”

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Soon it was clear — at least one person was shot in that gunfire, possibly more.

Ross-Byrom immediately relayed the call to dispatcher Jamilah Thomas.

Thomas had, moments earlier, received the first 911 call from the shooting site.

“And I was like, oh, Lord. Like, let me hurry up and get somebody here to the scene,” Thomas said.

Thomas issued the priority dispatch, as heard now on Broadcastify.com: “All units.... They’re now advising an active shooter, person shot.... 23-year-old female advises the front door is barricaded.... Be advised, a female shot.”

Then, Atlanta E-911 Fire Dispatcher Keisha Ward, working near the police dispatchers, went on the radio and called for reinforcements as additional reports from people on the 11th floor of the building, and from first responders, confirmed there were multiple people wounded.

I knew that I needed to start more engines or paramedic engines to the location and also basic life support to support the people that were being shot,” Ward said.

The three veteran dispatchers speak of how their training kept them focused, calm, professional.

“It automatically kicks in once you get a call like that,” Thomas said. “And, you know to start the ambulance, you know to start the fire department, everyone who needs to be involved in the call, you know, just start them.”

Ross-Byrom said the woman speaking with her on the phone was likely in a room near the shooter.

“I asked her was she safe and was the doors locked,” Ross-Byrom said. “And I asked her how many people was in there with her and if everyone was okay, does anyone need EMS or needing any kind of help.”

She reassured the woman that help was on the way to her and the others with her, and she stayed on the phone with her for one hour, until police and paramedics were able to reach those who were hiding, after they attended to the wounded. 

“I was like, oh my goodness, that lady start praying and I was just, okay, amen, amen, and just making sure she was okay,” Ross-Byrom said. “I kept asking, was the doors locked? And are y'all hiding, are you all up under the desk? And then they wanted to call their loved ones, so I was like, okay, I'll stay on the phone with someone and you can call on another phone.”

The dispatchers were relieved to hear later that the suspect was caught, and saddened that a woman did not survive; they hope that what they all did quickly helped save the lives of the four who were wounded, along with others who were there.

They know they likely will never meet any of them; they know that at that moment, especially, they had one job — as they have every day: “To save as much lives as possible,” Ward said, “to save as many lives as possible. I mean, that's our job, that's our job. Is to save as many lives as possible.”

And they were all back on the job the next day.

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