{"id":408794,"date":"2026-07-23T01:22:15","date_gmt":"2026-07-23T01:22:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/408794\/"},"modified":"2026-07-23T01:22:15","modified_gmt":"2026-07-23T01:22:15","slug":"the-mental-toll-of-being-a-911-dispatcher-in-fresno","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/408794\/","title":{"rendered":"The mental toll of being a 911 dispatcher in Fresno"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s the calls for help when a child is drowning that stay with Matt Mendes, a Fresno County Sheriff\u2019s Office 911 dispatcher who has worked his way up to supervisor.<\/p>\n

Dispatchers rarely get closure after sending an officer to a scene, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have to hear the screams and the cries for help. We have to make up the scenarios in our heads,\u201d Mendes said. \u201cI do think that we have it tough. We may not see the bodies, but we still have to hear it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fresno\u2019s law enforcement agencies, along with others across the country,<\/a> have struggled to keep positions filled for the stressful job that often comes with low pay and difficult hours, impacting call answer times. Both centers have made progress in answering 911 calls faster, but still fall below the state mandate to answer 90% of 911 calls within 15 seconds, The Bee recently reported<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Dispatchers for the Fresno Police Department and the County Sheriff\u2019s Office take calls from residents experiencing everything from shootings to mental health crises, domestic violence and robberies.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnything you can think of, somebody in here has answered that call,\u201d Jaime Fahlsing, emergency service dispatch manager for Fresno PD, told The Bee.<\/p>\n

Fahlsing worked as a dispatcher in Fresno for over 10 years before becoming a supervisor. She will never forget when a mother couldn\u2019t find her son and later called back to report he had committed suicide.<\/p>\n

Another that has stayed with her is when a woman called to report her rapist as the sexual assault was taking place.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is one dispatcher behind everything. The first, first responders is what we like to say,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

The job can take a mental toll, Fahlsing and Mendes say.<\/p>\n

Mendes leans on and talks with friends and coworkers at the Sheriff\u2019s Office to cope and find closure, he said.<\/p>\n

Fahlsing said she and many dispatchers become desensitized to the trauma they hear on a daily basis.<\/p>\n

Although others can realize the job is not for them after an extensive training process that can take up to a year. \u201cWe try to help them through that,\u201d Fahlsing said.<\/p>\n

But still, the traumatic calls and late-night shifts are not sustainable for everyone. \u201cAnd we respect that, and then they go find another job,\u201d Fahlsing said.<\/p>\n

For dispatchers who do choose to stay in the job, Fresno PD officials describe a change in culture over the past 10 years from a \u201ctough it out\u201d mentality to normalizing emotional reactions and support.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I first started in dispatch, it was the same mentality as law enforcement, in general,\u201d Fahlsing said. \u201cIf you can\u2019t handle it, get out, and that was okay back then. But we\u2019ve changed that as an industry, because the stuff that we\u2019re hearing is not normal.\u201d<\/p>\n

A focus has been placed on managing emotional tolls that come with the job rather than compressing it and moving on, Fahlsing said.<\/p>\n

Fresno PD dispatchers have access to a wellness center they can visit confidentially at any time without supervisor approval to receive services like counseling and other related services. Therapy dogs are brought in twice a month.<\/p>\n

When a critical incident involving multiple people across the police department, starting at dispatch, occurs, a social worker will often guide a debriefing conversation with everyone involved to help process emotions, Deputy Police Chief Burke Farrah told The Bee.<\/p>\n

\u201cThose debriefings, dispatchers attend and get a lot of closure from the events, and you will see some agencies that still do not include their dispatchers in those debriefings,\u201d Fahlsing said. \u201cIt\u2019s no fault to them, really. We\u2019ve just been a voice and been asking for it, and our department is really great at recognizing us. They really support dispatch.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Jaime Jaime Fahlsing, the Emergency Services Dispatch Manager for the Fresno Police Department’s 911 Communications Center, talks about the services they respond to from calls, Friday, June 26, 2026 in Fresno. Data shows the dispatch center is increasing its success in answering 911 calls within 15 seconds. ERIC PAUL ZAMORA ezamora@fresnobee.com \"The The Fresno Police Department’s 911 Communications Center staff respond to a wide variety of calls for different services, photographed Friday, June 26, 2026 in Fresno. Data shows the dispatch center is increasing its success in answering 911 calls within 15 seconds. ERIC PAUL ZAMORA ezamora@fresnobee.com <\/p>\n

This story was originally published July 22, 2026 at 11:03 AM.<\/p>\n

Related Stories from Fresno Bee<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s the calls for help when a child is drowning that stay with Matt Mendes, a Fresno County…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":406784,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[112,114,113],"class_list":["post-408794","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fresno","tag-fresno","tag-fresno-headlines","tag-fresno-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/408794","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=408794"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/408794\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/406784"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=408794"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=408794"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=408794"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}