FARMINGTON — Three Franklin County dispatchers were recognized Tuesday during a County Commission meeting for displaying the highest level of professionalism and expertise while doing their jobs.

Stan Wheeler, director of the Franklin County Regional Communications Center, named Kyle Ellis of Wilton as the 2014 Dispatcher of the Year.

He “has the amazing ability to keep calm while everything else is going to hell in a handbasket,” Wheeler said.

Ellis is a certified emergency medical dispatcher. If he passed the two tests he took last week, he will be certified as an emergency police dispatcher and an emergency fire dispatcher.

He has a positive attitude, continually works to further his education and improve his skills in the emergency field and often serves as a mentor to others, Wheeler said.

Wheeler also gave letters of commendation to dispatchers Blaine Rackliff of East Dixfield and Michael Ryan of Wilton for their emergency dispatch aptitude during two separate incidents.

Rackliff received a 911 call on Jan. 24, the weekend of the Snodeo, from a man in Rangeley, who told Rackliff that he and several friends had been partying the night before. As they were getting ready to go out again, they discovered that one member of their party was unconscious, Wheeler said.

Rackliff instructed the caller to put the phone near the patient. It was quickly determined that she was not breathing, he said.

He immediately gave the caller instructions on how to begin CPR chest compressions. It was also necessary to give the caller guidance on how to calm himself, as he became very upset after realizing the severity of the situation.

In the meantime, Rackliff’s partner dispatched NorthStar EMS ambulance to the scene. Because the incident occurred during the Snodeo, two ambulance crews were on duty.

Several minutes after an ambulance arrived, Rackliff received a radio transmission from the crew that spontaneous respiration had begun. The woman was taken to a hospital and revived.

Ryan was recognized for an incident that took place on Sept. 27, 2014, when he received a radio transmission from a Jay firefighter requesting immediate assistance at the scene of a serious accident on Route 4 in Livermore.

The information given was that one person had been killed and two others had received serious injuries, Wheeler said. 

After clarifying the exact location of the accident, Ryan immediately dispatched NorthStar ambulances to the scene and notified Androscoggin County Sheriff’s Department, requesting police and firefighters to respond.

Ryan took it upon himself to request a LifeFlight medical helicopter, Wheeler said.

Upon learning that the Livermore and Livermore Falls fire departments did not have sufficient available resources, Ryan dispatched Jay firefighters for mutual aid and extrication.

For the duration of the incident, Ryan managed all of the resources among multiple agencies in several jurisdictions and kept communications open with all of them, including arranging a different landing zone for the helicopter, he said.

Wheeler is extremely proud to have Ellis, Rackliff and Ryan as a members of the Franklin County Regional Communications Center team, he said.

dperry@sunmediagroup.net