PARIS — Donald Durrah has done it all. He began his career in 1991 as a firefighter in Gray, got his emergency medical services license, and fell into the world of dispatch by chance.

Now, he runs the show at the Oxford County Regional Communications Center.

“I got put into dispatch for one shift because somebody got sick, and to be quite honest, I never left,” he said. “I went into the Cumberland Police Department when they had their own dispatch center, so I could get a little bit of the police side of it. I went to Sagadahoc for a couple years, then to Cumberland County, and now I’m here.”

Durrah was hired to replace interim Director Geff Inman on June 10.

Durrah served as a dispatcher in Cumberland County for 23 years, 17 as a supervisor.

“I have an interesting perspective,” he said. “I enjoyed my time as a fireman. It was 10 minutes of glory and three hours of cleanup. I enjoyed putting the fire out, but I didn’t enjoy cleaning up everything afterwards. I got into dispatch, and it was something I got fairly good at, I was comfortable in and I stuck with it.”

First on the agenda, he said, is taking a look at the county’s policies and procedures, and updating them.

“Right now I’m kind of in a learning mode,” he said, “learning how they dispatch, because it’s different than where I came from, how they operate their radios, how they enter calls for service, exactly how every program that they use works, because each program is different. That’s where I am now. Still in the learning stage.”

But major issues don’t change from county to county, he said. 

“This county faces the same problems any other county has. They all have various similar issues,” the director said.

And technology is constantly changing, including a new system that allows the public to text 911.

Basically, a person experiencing an emergency texts 911. The information is sent to the Regional Communications Center where dispatchers type responses to the text. According to Durrah, voice calls are much easier to handle for the center. But the technology has some uses.

“We prefer that people use a voice call because it’s a lot easier for us,” he said. “If I put it in perspective, I’m sure you can picture how difficult it is for us to undergo a medical protocol while typing it. Verbal is much better. If they can give us a verbal call that’s great, but if they’re in a position where they can’t, they have a prowler in their house, that’s a perfect time to use that technology.”

And as someone who’s been on both sides of the call, Durrah said he understands his team’s perspective.

“These guys are the first first-responders,” he said. “Anybody that needs a firetruck or needs EMS or needs police needs to come here first. These guys make multiple decisions very quickly. They have to weed through the call and know what to send and when to send it.

“I would say it’s kind of unique for the mere fact that we’re just hearing things and we’re not seeing things,” Durrah said. “We are making decisions based upon what the complainant is telling us.”

The new directors said his goal is to provide the best possible service for the residents of Oxford County.