National Public Safety Telecommunicators Week is an opportunity to thank the “forgotten heroes” who take 911 calls and help people in some of their worst moments for the difficult work they do. It was also a great time for Marshall County 911 Communications Director Rhonda Braudis to announce that two of her dispatchers, Zac Mann and Caitlan Reineke, received the Golden Headset Award for Outstanding Collaboration from Zetron.

The incident that garnered the nomination for Mann and Reineke was their response to a house fire in rural Marshall County in the early hours of June 22, 2023, when a male caller advised Mann that he had five kids in the house and couldn’t get to them. Three deputies were dispatched immediately and told there were five children trapped inside.

While most house fires could be considered a “normal, everyday occurrence,” this one was anything but — when Deputy Jon Rogers arrived on the scene, two adults and five children were still trapped inside the home.

The deputy then advised he had to break windows, and it was later learned the smoke was so black that all he could see were small hands on the window. There was no way to get into the house and get everyone out safely in a conventional way, so Rogers made a choice to break those windows — a risky but ultimately successful plan. He was able to get everyone out of the house, even as Rogers himself was choking from the smoke billowing out of the structure.

“Working in dispatch at any given time during your career, you understand the moments from the start of a call to the conclusion of a particular type of call. Getting the residents out and knowing all were safe is intense,” Braudis wrote in her nomination. “We have certain knowns, and an understanding that if you dispatch for the county, help isn’t just right around the corner in many cases and may take a hot minute to get there.”

Mann and Reineke recognized the situation and leapt into action, getting additional help started towards the fire from deputies, ambulance and volunteer Fire/EMS units while continuing to handle administrative lines, other 911 calls and the fire with children trapped inside at the same time. Mann focused his efforts on the fire incident, and Reineke dealt with everything else, from the overflow of this incident to the administrative lines to additional requests coming in from other responders within Marshall County.

“This is easy work for a team, right? This team not only handled the incident, but they also handled overflow and all superfluous traffic to assist each other in staying focused on the tasks at hand,” Braudis wrote. “Through all of this, Communications Specialist Mann and Lead Reineke sat laser focused on their screens getting help there. They have made the calls, sent the help and are now simply praying (that) their responders and those children make it home safe – knowing the dangers of not only the fire and smoke inhalation but the potential of a backdraft from breaking a window, which ultimately saved the children.”

Through it all, Braudis added, they kept their cool and did their jobs with the highest level of professionalism.

“They were focused, zoned in on the tasks at hand and calm for their responders in the field and the community they serve, which, as we know, is desperately needed at times such as these. Some might say this is common for any dispatcher. This is what we do,” Braudis wrote. “That doesn’t take away the stress, anxiety, or impact on the dispatcher at the end of the day and at the end of these incidents. Any incident of this caliber is stressful, to have a team of such variance in tenure work so flawlessly together speaks volumes beyond measure.”

She commended the duo for performing like “seasoned dispatchers,” never wavering in their calm demeanor or in their stance while always displaying a controlled presence of mind as the ordeal unfolded, continuing through the resulting investigation and ensuring all was well. “Throughout the incident, this team continued to not only perform each function as requested of them but anticipated the needs of those responders on scene that were also clearly affected by the events unfolding,” Braudis said. “Fires are not an everyday occurrence, although they happen. They are intensive, stressful and adrenaline filled.”

Speaking to the T-R on Thursday, Reineke said she never foresaw herself receiving such a prestigious national award, but it was especially noteworthy for she and Mann as they have known each other for seven or eight years and previously dispatched together in Benton County before both eventually found their way to Marshall County.

“We’ve always worked really well together, and I think it’s kind of cool for me especially that we were able to get that teamwork, collaboration award. It’s just kind of cool that it all came out that way,” she said.

Mann reciprocated the compliments about how well the two work together — they’re so familiar, he said, that even if they don’t speak for four hours during a shift, they know exactly what the other will do, what they’ve already done and what they’re thinking about doing. They’re also thankful to work at an agency where the leadership — in this case, Braudis — is willing to nominate them for such awards.

In reflecting on the fire that day, Reineke said she can usually tell shortly after Mann takes a call whether it’s routine or something major, and she quickly had a sense that the situation was serious. That unspoken bond and trust came in handy as she called in additional help.

“He knew I was gonna do this. I knew he was gonna do this, and it all worked seamlessly. It’s a good feeling to work with a partner that you know has your back,” she said. “It was super smooth.”

And of course, even as they were taking this call, they were dealing with several others at the same time and continuing to dispatch the appropriate responding agencies to those situations. While they don’t do the job for awards or recognitions, Reineke and Mann feel that a commendation like this one pushes them to aim for greatness every day.

“We work so hard. We work very hard at what we do to be the best that we possibly can be, and I feel like every single one of my coworkers, we are all striving for that. And that’s what Caitlan and I strive for every single shift,” Mann said. “To be able to be recognized for our hard work and what we’ve done, it’s truly rewarding for us. We don’t actively want to go out and be recognized because I sit behind a phone and a headset and so no one ever sees me. And that’s something that I personally like. I don’t want to be face to face with some of the stuff our responders see, but it’s nice to get recognized and I appreciate it so much. And I appreciate Rhonda nominating us. It truly means a lot.”

Mann has been with Marshall County since August of 2018, and Reineke joined the team in May of 2020. Both came with previous experience at other agencies, and Braudis is proud to have them onboard.

“Trying to get a compliment from themselves is like pulling teeth. My leadership team, they go out and they look for those different things to make sure that I’m aware of them and look them up, go into detail and do these nominations because without that… (It’s just) this is what we do. This is our job,” Braudis said. “And they do this every single day. I can’t even tell you the number of good things that they do. I can’t say it enough. This is an amazing team, and Marshall County is very, very lucky.”