Carbon County’s 911 dispatchers are there when emergencies strike.

According to the county’s annual communications report, released Thursday by the county commissioners, the 11 full-time and four part-time dispatchers who man the 911 communications center 24 hours a day handled 143,861 calls in 2016, a decrease of 6,486 calls from 2015.But even though that number is down, the report, prepared by 911 Director Gary Williams shows there is an increase in calls for both police and EMS and emergencies keep happening.In 2015, Carbon County handled 62,387 police calls and 15,161 EMS calls. Those numbers increased last year to 63,249 for police and 16,334 for EMS.“The increase of (police) calls can be due to self-initiated incidents; calls received at the station and incidents found on patrol that were reported via radio to dispatch,” Williams said. “But even though the calls received are down by no means are the incidents we dispatch and track a reflection on our phone call total.“Another factor for the increase of (police and EMS) calls is the continuing growth of Carbon County. The population from the 1990 census was 57,253 compared to the 2010 census which was 65,249.”In addition, police and EMS are also handling an increase in drug overdose calls.The number of overdose calls handled by the two first responders increased from 712 in 2015 to 895 in 2016 and it represents a 334.47 percent increase over calls handled by EMS in 2006.“You can see the problem is not going away and it is increasing steadily over the years,” Carbon County Commissioners’ Chairman Wayne Nothstein said last month.He said the number of cases for overdoses doesn’t take into account calls that came in as an unconscious person, code blue, suicide, mental problem or unknown issues. “It’s really difficult to track the true number of calls that we get for drug overdoses.”Williams said the staff is experiencing a lot of growing trends at the center and handling emergencies that used to be a rarity but are trained to handle whatever comes their way.“The dispatchers — they are something,” he said. “I talk a lot about the technology and trying to keep up with it, but it is the 911 dispatchers that make Carbon County 911 what it is today.“They take a phone call of a caller’s worst day of their life and do everything possible to help that caller.”He said dispatchers are trained to be the first response in emergencies, giving everything they can do to help a caller before responders arrive.“They give CPR instructions, deliver babies, try to shield people from domestic violence, catch criminals to name a few,” Williams said. “Being a dispatcher is very stressful but we have a great staff here at Carbon County.”