Elly Spry was born and bred in Werribee South. She now lives in Werribee with her husband and two children.
She is one of many staff who work at ESTA (Emergency Services Telecommunications Authority). Their role is to be the first point of call whenever someone dials "000". They provide the critical link between the community and emergency services i.e. police, ambulance, fire brigade and SES. There are three ESTA call centres - Ballarat, Burwood East and Docklands. Due to the ever-increasing demand, a brand new centre is being constructed at Williams Landing.
Elly relayed some amazing facts about the Triple Zero service:
- ESTA answered more than 2.59 million calls in 2017-18.
- On average, there is one call every 12 seconds.
- There is in excess of 7000 emergency calls per day.
- There were 360,000 calls last year that were classed as non-triple zero calls.
- After receiving a legitimate emergency call, ESTA staff dispatched 2.1 million events to the relevant service which is an average of one every 15 seconds.
- 109 babies were delivered en route to a hospital.
- Triple zero calls (answered and dispatched) are increasing by one percent each year.
Part of Elly's role is to engage with the community to advise people on when to ring triple zero. She says the number should only be rung when the emergency is considered to be a serious, unexpected or dangerous situation that requires immediate action. This includes danger to life, health and/or property. Some examples include air, rail, road or water accidents, breathing difficulties, severe bleeding, drug overdoses, electric shocks, drownings, bomb incidents and fire threatening life or property.
Elly emphasised that Triple Zero is for critical situations or events that are happening now. Callers must be able to differentiate between emergency and non-emergency situations. Falsified, mischievous or hoax calls may lead to prosecution and even a prison sentence.
Elly loves her job but she says each day is different. Some calls are uplifting and others are quite stressful but you are trained to remain in control of the situation in order to collect accurate information and to keep the caller as calm as possible. You are not allowed to get emotional with the caller. The supervisor will be monitoring your responses and decision making processes. If a situation becomes too stressful, another staff member might take over. ESTA employs a number of counsellors to assist staff to deal with any problems they may have as a result of a call.
Footnote - Elly proved to be an engaging presenter with a very interesting story to tell. She has been one of many good speakers who have added value to our meetings this year. Well done to the program organisers Geoff Smith and Brian Ahmed. But don't rest there - keep up the high standard into next year.