Yanni and Laurel Call 9-1-1

What we can learn from the latest internet quandary.

"Do you hear what I hear?” may be a line from a beloved Christmas song, but it is also the most frequently asked question on the internet this week as people try to determine whether they hear “Yanni” or “Laurel” based upon listening to a sound bite. A number of so-called experts have chimed in discussing frequencies and offering scientific explanations, while another faction has been hard at work developing memes and videos playing off of this divisive question.  Now, what, say you, does any of this have to do with 9-1-1? I’ll tell you. An alert friend of mine asked me this morning if I, or any of my employees, had ever heard something completely different than what the caller said. My immediate answer was yes! On more than one occasion I’ve reviewed a tape and the information seemed crystal clear, yet the telecommunicator headed down a completely different road. Why? In many of my classes I discuss what I call “tunnel listening.” Now, we all are familiar with the concept of tunnel vision, where somebody sees exactly what they want to see. It’s sometimes called target fixation, when all outside activity other than the object on which you are focused is ignored. That’s why you’ll often get variations in accounts of the same incident as viewed by different witnesses.Since we are not yet a visual service, our prejudices inject themselves into our audial realm. Sometimes we hear what we want to hear. We listen for the familiar. Given two similar sounding street names, we’ll likely act upon the one we know. Even though we’ve been taught to be open minded, our initial questions, at least, may focus on landmarks, businesses, and intersections that make sense in that scenario. Hopefully, negative answers to our queries will force us to examine other options. Unfortunately, there may be times when we insist that the square peg fits perfectly into the round hole, and, despite the protestations of the caller, dispatch resources to the one that we know is “right.” Common business names can also lead us into the same trap. In many jurisdictions there may be a number of the same fast food restaurants, service stations, and drug stores in operation, even on the same street. A scan of the news tells us that these mistakes can, and do, happen.One of my pet peeves involves scripted protocols. EFD, EMD, and EPD are excellent tools and have a great track record. However, when agencies insist that every question be asked in order regardless of response, and when call takers lose critical cognitive skills due to an over reliance on cue cards, tunnel listening creeps in. How often have you heard a caller asked to provide information that he or she had already given simply because that information was “the next question on the list?” While I understand checks and balances, if we failed to process all information provided to us out of logical order, we’d never get off the phone. Plus, operating by rote creates the one thing that we should always work to avoid – a disconnect with the caller. We become so fixated with filling in the blanks that we stop listening for what’s really going on.  Reporting party: “My husband’s been completely decapitated!” Telecommunicator: “Is he conscious and alert?” You get the picture.Regardless of the name you hear, take some time to think about the much more serious implications of your listening skills, and what can be done to avoid the pitfalls presented by tunnel listening. When you’re done, you might also work on the solution to a previous online dilemma. Because whether the dress is blue and black or white and gold, Next Generation 9-1-1 will test your visual skills in the not too distant future. And 9-1-1 will need to have the right answer.