The gut-wrenching tragedy that changed 911 operator's outlook
Good morning, friends, this is Tennessean storytelling columnist Brad Schmitt.
When I was a young whippersnapper police reporter in the early 1990s, I'd stop in the sheriff's office every night to check to see if there were any newsworthy warrants issued. Truth is, I also stopped in that office to visit with a kind, funny clerk named Alisa Franklin.
A few years later, Alisa became a 911 call taker, and a damn good one.
"Alisa has a rare combination of humor, empathy and work ethic," her union liaison, Maura-Lee Albert, wrote me. "Alisa is the first to volunteer to help others whether it is a holiday shift or distributing meals to the elderly in her neighborhood."
After 27 years — after working the 1998 tornado, the 2010 floods and the recent Christmas downtown bombing — Alisa is hanging up her headset. Because one call, a personal tragedy, really rocked her and changed her perspective on the calls coming in and the callers making them.
"I’ve gotta start feeling again," she told me, tears streaming down her face. "I have to start being human again."
Please check out Alisa's powerful story here. My photojournalism colleague Nicole Hester put together this emotional video to help tell her story.
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This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: The gut-wrenching tragedy that changed 911 operator's outlook
