Published: 12/29/2021 4:38:29 PM
Modified: 12/29/2021 4:38:01 PM
Matthew Kinzler has saved lives by speaking calmly into the phone, but the 911 dispatcher isn’t a fan of long, intimate calls.
“On the phone, I don’t like opening up, I don’t like delving into it,” Kinzler said. “But I think it’s important. Sometimes that’s just what people need.”
Over the past five years, the 31-year-old has helped deliver a baby in the backseat of a car, talked rescuers through the life-saving steps of CPR and assisted countless New Hampshire residents on their worst days.
A caller might hear his steady voice, sometimes lowering into a creaky vocal fry, after dialing 911. After Kinzler gets an address and basic information, he forwards the call to local fire or police, or gets more facts from the caller while communicating with on-the-ground emergency services.
He usually works from a dimly-lit state call center in Laconia, where four computer monitors stacked on a quadrant on his desk show live maps of the state or a tool that populates medical protocols based on a patient’s symptoms and characteristics. In a typical 10-hour shift, lasting from 2 p.m. until 12:30 a.m., he might answer 40 or 50 calls.
Kinzler moved to the state six years ago with his wife Janyssa, a New Hampshire native. They live in Belmont with their nearly 3-year-old son and two foster kids, ages eight and 10.
Soon after his own son was born, Kinzler got a call: a mother was going into labor. Facing winter weather, it was too late to drive to the hospital. An ambulance couldn’t get to the family in time.
“I have a very easygoing demeanor, so you go from sitting relaxed to sitting up. I don’t want to say it’s a high, but you get that ‘here we go.’ Super-focused, super-engaged,” he said. Kinzler talked the jittery father through the delivery, and the baby was born safely before the ambulance arrived.
“The best part of that call was hearing the baby crying, because on that type of call, that’s what you want to hear,” he said.
Kinzler must be both soothing and businesslike while coaching callers through panicked moments, like a child trying to wake an unconscious parent or a husband discovering his wife is dead. “I’ve had somebody call who basically called to tell us where he was so that they could go find his body after he committed suicide,” he said.
When someone has already died, Kinzler doesn’t use stock phrases with the people who are processing their grief with him, a stranger on the phone.
“Sometimes it happens, where you do end up going deeper,” he said. “Obviously, saying ‘everything’s going to be okay’ in that type of situation — I stay away from that.”
Children between the ages of 6 and 14 can make the best callers, he said, because when kids don’t comprehend the full gravity of an emergency, it’s easier for them to follow practical instructions.
Kinzler has a Type A personality, but knows flexibility is necessary. “For me, personally, I like to be in control,” he said. Dispatchers have to be emotionally even-keeled, not easily rattled.
“You have to be able to let go of things, which I think can be hard. You have to be okay with knowing you’re not going to know the outcome of every call, you’re not going to know the outcome of most calls,” Kinzler said.
Sometimes he does try to find out the endings of the dramas in which he played a role, like what happened to a kid who was in the car when a family member attempted suicide.
Kinzler will decompress by singing along to 70s and 80s music on his 15-minute drive home. He credits his wife for understanding when he needs to go straight to bed after a particularly tough day.
Some of the hardest calls are those that hit close to home. When Janyssa was expecting, he dreaded any emergencies related to pregnancies. He hated taking calls about newborn seizures or sudden infant death syndrome when his son was a baby.
What Kinzler wants the people of New Hampshire to know is that every question that 911 dispatchers ask has a purpose, no matter how frustrating some might seem. He tries to handle each call the way he would want his own emergency to be handled.
“We’re here for them, and the information we try to gather from them is information we try to gather to help them,” he said. That’s his favorite part of the job: helping people.
