11/21/24
May 21, 2012
Orioles Announcer Makes His Greatest Call: David McGowan, the longtime stadium announcer for the Baltimore Orioles, made another kind of call last week. He was working his new job as a 911 operator in Prince George's County, Md., when a frantic woman dialed in to say her granddaughter was found in the pool and wasn't breathing. With a calm, steady baritone, McGowan told her how to do CPR on the two-year-old. It worked. "David has a great voice. He has a great calming technique," said trainer Ray Delano.
"While you're performing chest compressions, I just want to remind you that it's Twofer Tuesday at Cheeburger Cheeburger. Okay, now you're going to breathe into her mouth..."
posted by Etrigan at 10:59 PM on May 21, 2012
This is a great story and I don't mean to diminish the cool thing that is taking on that likely terrible job, but this also seems like a pretty predictable outcome from having that job so the story seems a little too congratulatory. How many lives are saved by non-famous 9/11 operators? Slow news day in delmarva I guess.
posted by feloniousmonk at 11:40 AM on May 22, 2012
this also seems like a pretty predictable outcome from having that job so the story seems a little too congratulatory
What seems like a pretty predictable outcome -- successfully instructing someone over the phone how to perform CPR on a toddler? I'm confused.
posted by lil_brown_bat at 12:07 PM on May 22, 2012
I don't know how often it happens, but it seems fairly miraculous to me that a novice 911 dispatcher could instruct a distraught grandmother on how to save a drowned toddler with CPR. We're fortunate that a guy who has seen so much suffering as an Orioles announcer was calm in the face of potential tragedy.
posted by rcade at 01:34 PM on May 22, 2012
successfully instructing someone over the phone how to perform CPR on a toddler
My wife gives instructions to new moms (and others) on how to perform CPR on small children. It's incredibly difficult to get them to do it right the first time, even when she's standing over them and visually explaining how to do it, and using a (creepy as f*ck) doll.
I can't imagine it's easier to do get a distraught grandmother to perform it on her dead/dying grandchild, where shouting instructions over a phone speaker is the only option.
The fact that it was his first attempt at it (since he was still a trainee)...that's pretty remarkable.
We're fortunate that a guy who has seen so much suffering as an Orioles announcer was calm in the face of potential tragedy.
*golf clap*
posted by grum@work at 02:43 PM on May 22, 2012
This is a great story and I don't mean to diminish the cool thing that is taking on that likely terrible job, but this also seems like a pretty predictable outcome from having that job so the story seems a little too congratulatory. How many lives are saved by non-famous 9/11 operators? Slow news day in delmarva I guess.
Yeah, but on the other hand, if this story makes us stop for a minute and think "wow, 911 operators have to do this sort of thing every day and nobody pays attention to that," then the story will at least have served to make us (for a moment) remember ALL of the 911 operators that do this sort of thing. Hats off to McGowan and to every 911 operator that saved somebody's life today (or ever).
posted by Joey Michaels at 05:22 PM on May 22, 2012
"Now breathing ... Linda's grandchild!"