Dealing with people in difficult situations such as shootings

							'They needed help and they couldn't get it':
911 dispatcher recalls night of horror during
Colorado movie theater shootings
By Louis Casiano, NBC News

Emergency dispatchers are often the first point of contact when tragedy strikes. Dealing with
people in difficult situations such as shootings, home break-ins and fatal accidents are all part of
the job.

But for Aurora, Colo., 911 dispatcher Kathie Stauffer, it took all she had to show strength on the
outside -- all the while nervous on the inside -- during her five-hour ordeal directing police and
other resources to the movie theater where a gunman was shooting at patrons during the
midnight premiere of the latest Batman film "The Dark Knight Rises."

After word of the shooting spread through the dispatch center early Friday, Stauffer knew that in
order to help those at the scene she had to remain calm and professional.

"You have to mentally break away," she told NBC station KUSA in Denver. " You can't identify
too much."

The night started out relatively quiet. "My screen was very empty," she told the Denver Post.

Then around 12:40 a.m., call after call started to come in all from the same place -- the Century
Aurora 16 cineplex.

"They're saying somebody is shooting in the auditorium," she said.

Scores had been shot and help was needed quickly. Stauffer calmly radioed to a few officers and
directed them to the scene.

A few minutes later, she and the other dispatchers directed every officer in the city to respond to
the scene of the shooting that would leave 12 dead and dozens wounded.

Suspect's family attorney: Concerned about family's safety

Once at the theater, officers pleaded for assistance, gas masks, ambulances and medical care.
During the chaos the 39-year-old mother of two kept her composure, even while thinking of her
own children.

"Every call with a kid, I'm thinking of my own," she told the Post. "That's really what I'm
struggling with now -- not to think about my own daughter every time."