Everyone knows if there's an emergency, you call 911 and they'll send an officer, a firefighter or a paramedic to help.
One person who's sometimes forgotten in the equation is the disembodied voice at the other end of that 911 call — the telecommunicator. It's their dedication and skill that keeps the whole system working, and, every once in a while, they get the recognition they deserve.
This year, Alena Greer of the Catawba County E-911 Telecommunications Center was selected as the 2009 Telecommunicator of the Year by the North Carolina chapter of the National Emergency Number Association.
Greer said when she found out she'd won the award, she cried with joy because she loves her job and does it without the expectation of reward or recognition.
She was nominated for the way she handled the 911 call that reported one of the grisliest crimes in Catawba County history.
On March 12, at about 7:30 a.m., Greer got a call from a hysterical girl who had just seen an intruder attack her friend. The caller was reporting the crimes that became known as the opium murders.
The deputies Greer dispatched found Lisa Phan, 40, and her three children — 20-year-old Melanie, 18-year-old Pauline and 4-year-old Cody, murdered in their home that morning.
Greer, a six-year veteran telecommunicator, remembers that when the call came in, she thought it was a breaking and entering and assault case based on the description she got from the caller. "I didn't understand the severity of the situation," she said.
"I tried to get as much information as I could about the suspect description, the house and the surroundings," Greer said. "My main concern was the safety of my deputies en route."
"We didn't know anybody'd been hurt or injured," said Catawba County Telecommunications Administrator Jerry Boggs. "She had no clue the outcome would be like it was."
Greer said the caller had continued on her route to school, picking up the classmates she took to school every day. She told Greer the house number where the attack was happening, but she didn't know the street the house was on.
Greer was able to map the caller's location and find the house by using the caller's cell phone GPS system.
Greer dispatched officers within two minutes of receiving the 911 call and kept the girl on the phone for 18 minutes to get vital information from her and to guide her to a safe location where deputies met her, Boggs said.
When Chief Deputy Coy Reid of the Catawba County Sheriff's Office arrived at the scene, he found a handgun under a bush. It appeared to have been tossed there — possibly after the suspect heard the approaching sirens.
The gun was a key piece of evidence that led investigators to the murderer — Chiew Chan Saevang, 37, of Schofield, Wis.
The officers got to the scene as quickly as they did because of Greer's quick actions, Boggs said.
"That call still bothers me a lot," Greer said.
In her six years on the job, she's played a vital role in innumerable lives. Once she helped bring a life into the world.
In May of 2004, she got a call about a woman who had gone into labor and was at home in a bathtub.
Greer said she guided the woman through childbirth, and, when the paramedics got there, the healthy baby boy had already arrived.
She still sees the mother and the boy around Lenoir and says they're doing well.
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