DENVER — Data shows more people are calling for help during emergencies, and Denver 911 is trying to keep up.
According todata from the Denver Department of Public Safety, calls for service from citizens went up by almost 7% in 2021. Year-over-year data for 2022 is not yet available.
The increase comes at a time when Denver 911 has been seeking solutions to its ongoing staffing shortage — which has lead to increased hold times and other challenges.
Wednesday morning, a Denver7 producer was placed on hold for seven minutes while trying to reach a Denver call talker.
"We witnessed someone having a seizure in my workout class, and I had to wait," said the producer.
The issues, though, aren't isolated to Denver's 911 operations.
"We are seeing hold times far more often today than we are used to," said Andrew Dameron, director of Denver 911. "And that is entirely due to our staffing levels, and what we are working to fix."
Dameron points to an academy class that began on Sept. 20 — if all the recruits graduate after their six-month training, Denver 911 will have 17 vacancies left.
"That actually gets our staffing up to over 81% on the call taker side," said Dameron, explaining the new total would be the highest capacity his team of call takers has operated with since 2021.
Longer hold times can't be addressed with recruitment alone, Dameron said retention is equally important.
This fall, Denver 911 upped its training capabilities from 15 recruits to 30 in hopes to address to staffing struggles. The class of recruits, which began on Sept. 20, was supposed to have 30 members, but the number fell to 17.
"It means working nights, it means working weekends, it means sacrificing time with their family... and it means helping people in very difficult situations," said the director. "And that can take a toll. And so I think the reality set in for a few of our candidates and they wound up deciding, 'I'm not sure I'm ready to do this just yet.'"
Denver 911 has also increased hiring bonuses for its spring academy from $1,200 to $3,000.
"In a perfect world, no one would have to wait for 911 ever, and we are trying to get to that point," said Dameron.
The digital-age has also contributed to some hold ups, the director explained.
"Wait times are something that happen more frequently in this day and age where everybody has a cell phone," said Dameron. "Any emergency where there's more than one or two people, you're going to have multiple folks calling 911. We see this with traffic accidents on the highway, we can have dozens of calls coming in all at once and that ties up the lines."
Denver7 contacted other 911 operations across the Denver metro to gauge staffing levels. It's important to note, not every dispatch center works the same — so a larger number of vacancies, or even a few vaccines, doesn't necessarily mean operations are critically threatened.
Aurora and JeffCo both have 20 openings. Arapahoe County has nine openings, and DougCo has five.
“I have never met a manager or director of an emergency communications center that said they were fully staffed, and that was before COVID," said Mike Brewer, Jeffcom 911 deputy director. "We have also experienced terrible retention rates that can be chalked up to a variety of issues and external factors. The bottom line is that this is an issue that we can’t simply hire our way out of.”