Dispatching Emergency Assistance: Callers' Claims of Entitlement and Call Takers' Decisions.

Staff who take calls at the emergency centers in Denmark have to decide whether, on hearing what the caller first says, to (a) immediately start asking dispatch-relevant questions (for example, the caller's address) or (b) first check whether the reported incident is actually an emergency at all. The call takers' choice not only conveys different signals to the caller with regard to whether or not assistance will be granted but also has consequences for the emergency centers' response times. In this study, I focus on cases where callers present their reason for calling by means of an overt request, without providing any information about the incident. I show that what the call takers base their initial decision on is the claim of entitlement that the callers encode into their request. The downside of this staff practice is that subsequent questioning may, in fact, reveal the decision to be inaccurate and the dispatch of assistance to have been either prematurely initiated or unduly delayed. I explicate the mechanisms involved, how the calls play out, and what the implications might be. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]