Carbon County is seeing a steady increase in the number of calls taken by its 911 dispatchers annually.

On Thursday, the board of commissioners spoke about the Carbon County Communications 2019 annual report that Gary Williams, director, recently released.

Commissioner Chris Lukasevich commended Williams and the staff for what they are doing.

“(The report) gives a good overview of the roll 911 has played, specifically the accomplishments and trends in regards to (the dispatchers) tasks,” he said.

Commissioners’ Chairman Wayne Nothstein highlighted a few of the figures in the report.

For 2019, dispatchers handled 211,501 calls to the communications center for various emergencies. That is a spike in calls, which averaged around the 140,000 mark over the last decade.

“That’s a lot of incidents that these dispatchers are handling,” Nothstein said, noting how stressful and critical of a job dispatching is, especially when lifesaving instructions, such as CPR are necessary for the caller to help save a life.

In addition, the total number of incidents for police, fire and EMS dropped slightly to 74,520, but a further breakdown showed that top calls, not including drug-related incidents, included controlled burns at 1,461; falls, 1,330; breathing problems, 1,216; accidents, 1,289 and burglar alarms, 1,208.

For drug-related incidents, there were a total of 219 drug investigation calls; and 176 overdose calls, which included 111 cases where naloxone was administered and 24 overdose deaths.

The 911 communications center is manned round the clock by 13 full-time dispatchers and four part-time dispatchers.