Menu
Dispatch

Dispatchers on the Frontlines: Natural Disasters and Moral Injury

CRACKYL Staff

By: CRACKYL Staff

November 15, 2024

By Shannon Polito, ENP RPL 

The U.S. has seen a record number of catastrophic natural disasters over the last several years. This year has been no exception. The hurricanes, wildfires, flooding, and tropical storms have taken a toll that has gone beyond damaged infrastructure. 

The mental and emotional toll they have taken on first responders has reached a new crushing weight, with 911 dispatchers being the first to receive the desperate cries for help. 

The 911 dispatchers face many challenges during natural disasters. These include a high call volume, the distressing nature of the calls, limited resources, and more. However, the unseen toll they face during these times of extreme crises is moral injury. 

What is Moral Injury?  

Moral injury refers to the psychological, emotional, and spiritual pain that occurs when someone feels they have acted against their moral or ethical values. This often results in feelings of guilt, shame, or betrayal, and ultimately self-blame for being unable to do something more or something differently.

Many wrongly assume a dispatcher would only experience moral injury when he or she consciously violates an ethical or legal boundary, like breaking a rule, policy, or law that could cause harm or legal consequences. 

This misunderstanding can lead to moral injury being overlooked, despite the fact it requires as much time, care, attention, and often therapy, as any other form of stress or trauma. 

According to Lexipol, “Moral injury is distinct from other psychological challenges that first responders may face over the course of their careers, including PTSD, burnout and compassion fatigue.” 

Dr. Jamie Brower, in his webinar, Moral Injury: What Is It And What Can We Do About It?, states, “The injury occurs in relation to an individual’s personal morals and sense of integrity. Moral injury involves an inability to forgive yourself for your actions.”

Symptoms of Moral Injury

Like other stress or trauma injuries, moral injury affects the dispatcher holistically. It can be seen as manifesting in the areas listed below. 

Psychological Symptoms

  • Guilt: Persistent feelings of guilt over actions or inactions that conflict with moral beliefs.
  • Shame: Intense feelings of embarrassment or self-loathing.

Emotional and Spiritual Symptoms

  • Loss of Faith or Spiritual Crisis: Questioning or losing one’s spiritual or existential beliefs.
  • Emotional Numbness: Feeling disconnected from emotions and others.

Behavioral Symptoms

  • Avoidance: Steering clear of situations or memories that trigger guilt or shame.
  • Self-Sabotage: Engaging in harmful behaviors to cope with inner conflict.

Physical Symptoms

  • Sleep Disturbances: Trouble sleeping or experiencing nightmares.
  • Fatigue: Chronic tiredness or lack of energy.

How Natural Disasters Can Create a Unique Moral Injury 

There are several factors that lead to 911 dispatchers experiencing a moral injury while working during a natural disaster. 

Powerlessness in Life-Saving Situations

During natural disasters, 911 dispatchers often receive urgent calls from people facing life-threatening conditions — such as being trapped in floods, fires, or collapsing buildings — without being able to offer direct, physical assistance. Despite doing their best, dispatchers may experience a profound sense of powerlessness when they can’t save the callers.

Crushing Call Volumes

Natural disasters result in an influx of emergency calls, forcing dispatchers to make tough choices about which emergencies to prioritize. When they can’t address every call, they may experience moral distress, feeling as though they’ve left some individuals in peril without help.

Hearing Human Suffering

While not physically present, dispatchers are constantly exposed to the terror, fear, and often the final moments of people’s lives. Listening to these calls can evoke guilt or sadness, especially when children or vulnerable individuals are involved, as they may feel powerless to change the outcomes.

System Failures

Large-scale disasters often overwhelm emergency systems, leaving dispatchers to deal with limited first responders, communication breakdowns, or resource shortages. They may feel a sense of betrayal when they believe the system has failed the people they’re trying to help, which can contribute to moral injury.

Facing Ethical Challenges

Dispatchers often confront ethical dilemmas when they cannot assist everyone in need. Telling callers no immediate help is available, or being unable to answer certain calls due to volume can create moral conflict, leading to feelings of guilt or self-blame.

Moral Injury Has Been Identified, Now What? 

Psychological First Aid (PFA) has been shown to be an effective approach to address moral injury in first responders. 

Psychological First Aid is an evidence-informed approach to providing support to survivors following a serious crisis event, and it aims to reduce the initial distress of the traumatic event and to promote adaptive functioning and coping.” 

What is PFA and How Does it Look?

Knowing the practical steps to take is key to mitigating the depth of any stress or trauma injury. Moral injury is no exception. Just like the symptoms are holistic, the care of the 911 dispatcher must also be holistic. 

Immediate Engagement and Connection

Approach with respect and empathy. Build trust by engaging in a non-intrusive, supportive manner that allows dispatchers to share if they feel comfortable. 

During a study of those struggling in response to a natural disaster, those surveyed, “mentioned that it was invaluable to have someone who could understand and make them feel that they were not alone with their emotions.” 

Ensuring Safety and Stabilization

Meet dispatchers’ immediate physical needs — food, water, rest — to help stabilize their emotional state after exhausting rescue efforts.

“Your goal in providing this Psychological First Aid is to promote an environment of safety, calm, connectedness, self-efficacy, empowerment, and hope.”

Providing Practical Support

Triage emotional and mental health needs to identify who requires immediate support, addressing the emotional toll of the disaster.

Promoting Calm and Comfort

Normalize emotional reactions to trauma, helping dispatchers understand that stress and grief are common and not a sign of weakness.

Reinforcing Social Connections

Encourage peer support, fostering strong bonds through shared experiences and open conversations in a safe space. 

Peer support is at the center of these efforts. Whether through official peer support channels or through unofficial peer support, relationships are what help bring first responders back to their why.”

Providing Information and Resources

Share coping strategies, like relaxation exercises and mental health services available for future support.

Promoting Hope and Resilience

Highlight their strengths and accomplishments, reminding dispatchers of the positive impact they’ve had during the crisis.

Linking to Continued Care and Follow-Up

Ensure ongoing mental-health support, connecting dispatchers with long-term therapy or counseling to address lingering stress or trauma.

This is certainly not a dispatcher-only issue. It’s pervasive across all first-responder fields. EMS, firefighters, and law-enforcement workers can also experience moral injury. 

Oftentimes, they experience it within the parameters of occupational stressors, feeling that those in charge require actions incongruous with the moral system of those in the field. Those experiences are not to be overlooked or taken lightly. However, as in many areas, dispatchers are often unseen and therefore unaddressed in this area of injury, thus the need for specific and immediate attention on this topic.  

Moral injury is no different than any other type of trauma injury; experiencing it does not make the dispatcher broken, unfixable or damaged for life. It is something that can be healed with the right attention and treatment. 

More education about this issue is needed, as is more attention to the effects and how to address it at every level. There is hope for the future as it seems many agencies are moving in the right direction to address the mental, emotional, physical and spiritual needs of their first first responder, the 911 dispatcher. 

Get the best of CRACKYL each week

Sign up for free to get new articles, videos and special offers straight to your inbox