Paul Kamps has been an emergency dispatcher in Dane County longer than the county 911 system has existed.

The 56-year-old said he became a Madison police dispatcher because he gets meaning in his life from helping people -- whether that means delivering babies over the phone or comforting someone whose loved one had died.

"I wanted to catch the bad guys too, " Kamps said. "We can do an awful lot on that end. "

Kamps started in 1983, five years before the Madison police and fire departments and Dane County Sheriff 's Office pooled their dispatch services into one call center.

Before then, anyone with an emergency had to dial the seven-digit number for the individual service. The 9-1-1 designation for emergencies was created by the federal government in 1968, but didn 't become the standard number until the 1980s.

Much has changed in the 20 years since the county merger, particularly after a 2004 report found several deficiencies in the staffing, procedures and oversight of the 911 center.

But for all the things the Oregon resident has seen and heard over the years, nothing has made him want to speak out more than the latest episode involving a 911 call from homicide victim Brittany Zimmermann 's cell phone.

"It sickens me that a communicator who has provided more than 20 years of exemplary service is being pilloried by the media, being labeled as a bungler, and being blamed by the chief of police for everything short of the homicide itself, " Kamps told the State Journal.

"We currently have teams of people rehashing every minute detail of her performance, in order to assign her the blame, " Kamps said. "Ironic that there are no teams of people counting the lives of people she has helped save. "

Working conditions

Kamps described several factors in the working conditions that could have played a role in what happened on April 2.

Kamps was on duty when the call came in and said the call volume was quite busy -- busy enough that the computer ended up routing three calls in a row to a 20-year veteran.

The computers are programmed to route calls to the dispatcher who has had the most time lapse since the previous call, support services manager Tom Hanrahan said Friday.

The dispatcher only heard muffled noises, Kamps said, which she listened to in an attempt to interpret what was happening

"We listen to all kinds of sounds, from elevator music to normal conversation, to people yelling at each other, to construction site noise, to the sounds of road traffic, laughter, television sets, and a hundred other noises, all of which are muffled, or cutting in and out, and all this time we 're trying to figure out whether or not something bad is happening, " Kamps said.

Emergency address

The dispatcher in the Zimmermann case asked the address of the emergency three times. Kamps said during the call she began "rebidding " the cell phone signal in an attempt to get a cell phone tower triangulation.

"With the technology we have, when a cell phone call is rebid, we often lose a piece of the audio signal, but we often get a general location of the cell phone, ranging from the actual location of the caller, to within an area of a half mile or so, " Kamps said.

The system showed the latitude and longitude of an apartment building next door to Zimmermann 's address, county officials have confirmed.

After a period of time the dispatcher heard the phone call disconnect and released the connection on her own line, Kamps said.

As soon as she disconnected, another 911 call came through her console, which turned out to be an immediate disconnect -- meaning no sound at all or the sound of a dial tone, Kamps said.

The dispatcher called the second phone number back, but it happened so fast, Kamps said, that the people listening to a tape of the calls hours later mistakenly believed she was calling back Zimmermann 's phone.

"We all try to call back every 911 disconnect that comes in, " Kamps said. Dispatch center policy requires call-backs "as time permits. "

"But the fact of the matter is that a phone call during which we 've been listening to nothing discernible is given a lower priority than a call during which we hear anything that raises an alarm. "

"We do the best we can, despite any shortcomings of the equipment we use, or the fact that we just don 't yet have the staffing we really need, " Kamps said.

13 consoles

The action takes place at 13 consoles in a room on the first floor of the City-County Building.

Of the 13 people who work peak shifts, two perform radio dispatching duties for Madison police, one dispatches Dane County sheriff and municipal police officers, two dispatch fire and emergency medical calls, two share radio and phone requests for city and county records checks, warrants requests, and other related duties and one person is the floor supervisor, who must be available to address any technical problems.

That leaves five people to answer phones, including the 911 calls, the non-emergency phone lines and the administrative and direct phone lines when police stations are closed.

If all call takers -- including the dispatchers and the others on shift -- are busy, an alarm sounds and a signboard flashes red, Kamps said. This signals those on calls to attempt to wrap up their call and answer the next line.

Maps hang above arrays of six monitors at each station and cover the acoustic paneling on the walls.

Kamps said noise is often a problem at the center. The drop-tile ceiling, thin carpeting and metal casings from the old computer systems don 't help.

Dispatchers use headsets with small speakers that hang on the outside of one ear. That speaker is housed in a plastic disc the size of a quarter with pinholes on both sides.

They are designed so dispatchers can hear not only the sounds over the phones, but also other sounds in the communications center, including conversations between dispatchers and radio traffic from police, fire and EMS radios, sometimes from other counties or agencies.

"I know for a fact that I have missed parts of phone noises, and I suspect that it 's because I am a human being, and not a machine, " Kamps said.

'Many different things'

Often, after five or six hours, the headset begins to hurt, Kamps said, and he has to readjust its position, sometimes while on a call. Other times he will use both hands to cover his ears in order to better hear the noises on the phone.

"We try to do the impossible, keeping track of many different things at once, and all the time evaluating the mundane versus that which requires our immediate attention, " Kamps said.

Dispatchers often work 12-hour shifts, with a 15-minute break every four hours, though Kamps said overtime has been better managed since director Joe Norwick started last year.

"Once Norwick came in, it seemed he was able to get the ball rolling and get people hired to reduce the need for forced overtime, " Kamps said.

The County Board has agreed to spend $650,000 on either 18 or 22 new, smaller consoles that will allow expansion at the center, officials said.

In 2006, the county spent $450,000 on a new phone system that now allows the center to track the exact number of calls each year.

In 2007, the center handled 668,460 calls, including 148,608 outgoing calls and 519,852 incoming calls. Of those, 161,348 were 911 calls, which is down from the number of calls reported in 2002, something operations manager Rich McVicar said didn 't make sense and would need to be reviewed.

Aside from emergency calls, the center receives calls about parking violations, power outages, weather and road conditions, as well as several dozen "hang-ups " a day, which could be wrong numbers or actual emergencies.

About a dozen calls each year come from people dialing the wrong number while attempting to order pizza, McVicar said. That 's because the old Madison Fire Department number is 255-7272, or 255-PAPA. Multiple Papa John 's and Papa Murphy 's pizzerias use the 7272 suffix.

Quality control

The center 's quality control program reviews about 150 calls each month to check that dispatchers are asking the right questions. Since 2005, the county has used priority dispatch software for fire and medical emergencies. Dispatchers have a series of questions that they ask to help determine the nature of the emergency and which agency and equipment should be dispatched.

There is no quality control that ensures dispatchers are returning phone calls if they have to move on to other calls. It 's something the center is now trying to develop, McVicar said.

Annual report

Norwick said he also wants to develop an annual report for the center and improve the center 's Web site.

Dispatchers are trained in an 11-week program. The latest group of five recruits was chosen out of about 100 applicants, Hanrahan said. They began training March 31 and are nearly finished with a program that involves five weeks of classroom work and six weeks on the floor with a trainer.

Dane County used to have hundreds of applicants for the job, which pays from $19.40 to $23.86 per hour.

"Statewide and nationwide, there is a huge shortage of dispatchers, " said Paul Logan, a Dane County 911 center dispatcher and state president for the Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials.

Kamps understands why. It 's hard work, it 's taxing and it 's not a whole lot of fun, he said.

"We do not do this job for the money, or the glory, " Kamps said. "We are content to remain behind the scenes, knowing that we make a difference. "

State Journal reporter Chris Rickert contributed to this story.