What a 911 Professional Revealed About 911 That Most People Will Never Know

Written by: WTT Contributor

There is a video making its way around the internet right now, and if you have not seen it yet, you should stop what you are doing and watch it.

Business Insider sat down with Ricardo Martinez II, a 13-year 911 dispatcher turned advocate and podcast host, for a raw, unfiltered look at what actually happens on the other end of your emergency call. The video is titled "How 911 Dispatchers Actually Work," and in the space of about 38 minutes, it dismantles nearly everything the average person thinks they know about the job. It is one of those rare interviews where someone lets you all the way in.

The composure you hear is a performance. A necessary one.

One of the most striking things Martinez says early in the video is about the voice dispatchers use on the phone. That calm, steady, almost unshakable tone you hear when you call 911? It is real, but it is not the whole truth.

"In the back of my head, I'm freaking out just like you are," he says. "Because I'm human too. You won't hear that. You will just hear the even tone."

He describes a call involving a young woman hiding in her basement from a man who had been stalking her. While he was typing updates, keeping her calm, talking her through it, the doorbell rang so loud in his headset that it rattled his ear. She confirmed it was him. The doorbell rang again. Officers eventually arrived and got the man. But what stayed with Martinez was not the resolution. It was that years later, walking through a hardware store and hearing someone hit a doorbell, he stopped cold. He recognized the sound.

That kind of detail does not make it into a job description.

The questions are not slowing help down. They are the help.

Martinez addresses one of the most common frustrations people have when calling 911: why is the dispatcher asking so many questions when there is an emergency happening right now?

The answer is both simpler and more layered than most people expect. By the time a caller provides a location, help is already being dispatched. The questions happening after that are running parallel to officers who are already moving. The dispatcher typing notes on their screen is being read in real time by radio operators who are already sending units.

"The amount of questions I ask does not delay the time it takes to get someone out there to you," he explains.

He also walks through a technique that seems counterintuitive but makes perfect sense once you hear it. When a caller is hysterical and not processing anything being said to them, raising your voice does not work. You become white noise. But if you drop your voice down to nearly a whisper, something shifts. The caller stops. They wonder if anyone is even there. And in that pause, the dispatcher jumps in. That is the opening.

It is a small thing, and it changes everything.

One shift. Three emergencies at the same time.

The most visceral section of the video is when Martinez walks through a real triage scenario from his time in dispatch. Shift change. He is the only person on phones. A personal injury accident on the highway. A verbal domestic, separated parties. He is working both when a third call comes in, a medical, and he has to do CPR instructions live on the phone.

Three active calls. All of them real. All of them urgent.

He puts one on hold to check on another. While he is there, the domestic situation escalates. Weapons are now involved. Officers are on their way and do not know yet.

The question he poses to the viewer: who do you stay with?

He goes to the domestic. Not because the CPR call matters less, but because EMS has arrived at that scene and the caller is doing textbook compressions. His officers are heading into an unknown weapons situation and he needs to update them before they walk in.

It is a decision made in seconds. It sounds like a thought experiment until he describes it, and then it sounds exactly like what it is: a person doing four jobs at once while trying not to let anyone die.

The pizza thing is a myth. Sort of.

Martinez takes a moment to address something that has circulated on social media for years: the idea that if you call 911 and tell them you want to order a pizza, dispatchers are trained to recognize it as a distress code and send help.

He is clear: it has never been an official protocol. It has never been trained.

But here is what he also says: dispatchers are trained to listen for anything that sounds off. If someone calls and keeps insisting they want pepperoni and mushroom after being told they have reached 911, a good dispatcher is going to notice. They will switch to yes or no questions. Are you able to speak freely right now? Is there someone there with you? Are you in danger?

It is not a protocol. It is a skill. And the fact that so many people have shared that post probably means more callers are thinking about it, which might actually help them in a genuine crisis moment. He gives credit where it is due, even while setting the record straight.

The call he took when his grandmother died.

There is a moment in the video where the interview shifts entirely. Martinez is no longer explaining how the job works. He is explaining what the job did to him.

It was 2007. His grandmother was in hospice care. His entire family was gathered at his aunt's house. He was on a midnight shift. His partner stepped out to the break room and no sooner did the door close than the phone rang.

He recognized the number. His mom's cell.

He picked up. "911, where's your emergency?" His cousin answered. "Richie?" And then she told him his grandmother had just died.

He was the one to take the call.

He sat with that for a long time before he talked about it. He describes how dispatchers are told, sometimes explicitly and sometimes by unspoken culture, that the calls stay at work. That you leave them on the shelf when you go home. He believed that for a while. "That was a lie," he says. "I was just lying to myself."

That call pushed him to finally start opening up. To start talking. And eventually, to build a platform where other dispatchers could do the same.

The recognition fight is not over.

Near the end of the video, Martinez gets into something that does not get nearly enough attention outside of the dispatch community. Across the United States, 911 dispatchers are not classified as first responders. They fall under administrative and clerical workers for federal classification purposes.

One in four seats at 911 centers nationwide sits vacant. Directors of entire dispatch centers have been paid $60,000 a year. The staffing crisis is not a rumor. It is a number.

There has been legislation working its way through Congress to change the classification. The Enhancing First Response Act of 2025 has passed the Senate. It needs the House. Martinez is not asking for a parade. He is asking for a federal study on PTSD in the dispatch community, for compensation that reflects the reality of the work, and for the recognition that has been long overdue.

He puts it simply: "It's not just recognition. It will allow us to finally get some sort of federal study on what affects us, because we are affected by it just as much as those out in the field."

Why this video matters

Most people will only ever interact with 911 in the worst moment of their lives. They will call in a panic, answer questions that feel like obstacles, and have no idea what is happening on the other end of the line.

What Ricardo Martinez does in this video is pull back the curtain on all of it. The composure and the fear underneath it. The triage and the split-second decisions. The calls that stay with you decades later. The fight to be seen.

Watch it. Share it. And the next time you or someone you know calls 911 and wonders why a stranger is asking so many questions at the worst possible moment, remember: the person on the other end is already sending help. They just cannot tell you that yet.