I went to work on Wednesday, January 22nd of this year, just like any other day.

I was assigned to answer not one calls the first half of the day,

and the second half I was on a fire dispatch radio that is mainly used for administrative duties,

but also takes any larger commands that may come in.

Anything from a gas leak to a vehicle rollover or up to a structure fire or something even larger scale.

Anything that might require more than four units, that incident will be assigned to a command channel.

The start of the time on that radio went like most

others on that position. Units checking out a service to go to various trainings, taking their

equipment for repairs, and phone calls from the firefighters and medics, just wanting general

info about things. Just after 11 o'clock, I saw the phone start lighting up.

Then I saw what no one there wants to see pop in our pending calls.

A call for an active aggressor in a school.

One of the other fire dispatchers assigned the command channel to me, and I turned on a handheld

radio to monitor that channel.

When you're on the radio and you see a call like that, you hope that you quickly get an update

that it's a false call.

Welcome back to Music City, 9-1-1.

9-1, what's the address to the emergency?

Staniak High School, 19-0-0, Huston-Pike Road.

Okay, so let me pull that up.

Hold on one second.

Stay on the phone with me. Okay, 9,200 miles in Pike.

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