LOUISVILLE, Ky. — He's the voice on the other end of your 911 call, and the dispatcher making sure our first responders get to you on time.
MetroSafe's Pat McNeill will answer his last call on Easter Sunday and it's sure to be a bitter sweet moment. McNeill decided to make the shift from mall security to dispatcher in 1995. He worked both ends, taking calls and dispatching for Jefferson County out of a building off Barrett Avenue, and later became a firefighter, working both jobs.
"We were a much smaller center then, which was before the merger," he said.
Back then, only county police runs were tracked through computers.
"EMS and volunteer fire departments were on run cards; you had a time clock and a card," McNeill said. "Say for a fire run, as soon as you got the card, you time stamped it, did your dispatching, time stamped it again."
The technology wasn't what it is today. That's what's been a gamechanger. But one thing's stayed the same, his calming voice amid the chaos.
"It takes a toll on you," McNeill said. "You don't think it does, but it does. They call us because they need guidance, they don't know what to do."
One of his hardest calls, was one of his first.
"A couple in the east end was having a Christmas party at their house and a fire broke out, and the husband went back down in the basement. And tragically enough, he didn't make it," McNeill said.
He recognizes death is a part of the job. But in the next moment, you're helping deliver a new life into the world and you're uplifted.
"I told her, like we're trained to, 'don't push!'" McNeill recalled of a woman in the east end who delivered her baby in a bathroom. "And boom -- lil' bambino; a baby right there!"
McNeill also remembered the 1996 tornadoes that hit Bullitt County, and one of the more puzzling 911 calls they received.
"He called in the middle of the disaster to ask what time it was so he could reset his clock. Apparently, his power had just come back on," he said.
Now, in his final days on the job, all the calls are flooding back, along with memories of his co-workers who've become his family.
His closest friends will tell you there's never a dull moment when he's around, whether it's a reenactment of cleaning windows with a squeegee or recalling a Bush's Baked Beans commercial word for word.
For years, McNeill was in charge of 'attempting to find Santa' on Christmas Eve; he'd alert all radio channels of his position.
"One year, a little too much eggnog, another he was driving too fast in the sleigh," he said.
Moments he wouldn't trade for the world.
"Like the old saying goes, all good things have to come to an end," McNeill said, crying.
But he knows who to call if he ever changes his mind.
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