Trusting Your Training

When Hunter Corbin took her first CPR call, she had been working as a solo Emergency Dispatcher for one month.

Before that, she completed six weeks in the training academy followed by four weeks of on-the-job training, dispatching in tandem with a more experienced co-worker. One of Corbin’s best friends, a member of the Sedgwick County Sheriff’s Office, had encouraged her to apply for an opening at Sedgwick County Emergency Communications (Kansas, USA).

The moment she realized she wanted to keep working in 911 was after her month and a half of extensive training finished and she took her first call. Corbin “didn’t mess it up” and realized that facing it alone wasn’t as frightening as she had expected it to be.

It was late July 2024 when Corbin answered a call on a shift that was different from most others. It started with the patient’s wife, Karla Flora, saying that she found her husband unconscious on the couch.

“I could hear his agonal breathing,” Corbin recalled. “During the 911 training academy, we were taught eight different phrases to know that the patient is definitely not breathing and his status fit.”

Karla began following the CPR instructions right away, but almost immediately ran into a snag: Jeff, the patient, was in a recliner, which is not an ideal position to give chest compressions.

“Hunter seamlessly followed protocol and had the caller get him flat on the floor,” said Elora Forshee (CPE), Director of Sedgwick County Emergency Communications. “Hunter told his wife [the caller] not to worry about hurting him in the process. It’s a testament to how that protocol works around those barriers.”

After getting her husband flat on his back, Karla continued CPR with Corbin reassuring her and counting alongside her until EMS responded six minutes after the call was placed. Corbin signed off and went on to her next call, not finding out that the patient had survived until months later when the EMS agency reached out to invite her to a ceremony celebrating the CPR save.

“I wanted to cry,” Corbin said. “It was so surreal. It’s a whole different feeling when you get to see a patient face-to-face, standing directly next to me.”

In addition to meeting Jeff, Karla, and their eight kids and 10 grandkids at the ceremony, Corbin got to talk to the EMS responders who arrived on scene to take over the lifesaving efforts. It was a rare opportunity to hear what happened after she hung up the phone. The paramedics administered the defibrillator a couple of times and they “could tell that he was fighting to come back. They knew that he had a chance of life.”

Corbin has the following advice for other Emergency Dispatchers: “Follow your protocol and take it one word at a time. The protocol is designed to help you, even to get a patient out of a recliner. And don’t panic! You’ve got resources to help you. I knew I could call a supervisor or co-worker over to help if I needed to. Trust in yourself. We’re trained extensively and that is what we have to fall back on. I am confident so early on [in my career] because I was trained the right way.”

Sedgwick County Emergency Communications is the primary answering point for 911 calls in Sedgwick County and provides dispatch services for the Sedgwick County Sheriff's Office, Sedgwick County Fire Department, and Sedgwick County Emergency Medical Service. They also provide dispatch services for the Wichita Police and Fire Departments, as well as outlying municipalities of Andale, Bel Aire, Bentley, Cheney, Clearwater, Colwich, Derby, Eastborough, Garden Plain, Goddard, Haysville, Kechi, Maize, Mt. Hope, Park City, and Valley Center.