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The unseen heroes of the Noblesville shooting response

Posted at 11:15 AM, May 29, 2018
and last updated 2018-05-29 11:15:18-04

HAMILTON COUNTY, Ind. -- Friday was a normal day inside the Hamilton County 911 Center, until all of a sudden the phones started ringing as shots were being fired inside Noblesville West Middle School.

Police say a student at the middle school started firing inside a classroom at about 9 a.m. A science teacher, 29-year-old Jason Seaman, tackled the student. Seaman was hit three times during the incident, but released from the hospital Saturday. Ella Whistler, a student at the school, was also shot. Her family says she's doing well at Riley Hospital for Children.

The entire center became the nerve center between the people calling 911 from inside the school and the first responders rushing to the scene.

The dispatch team trains for all kinds of incidents, but ironically last week, they did specific training for active shooters.

"Literally on Tuesday and Thursday of this last week, every one of the folks, 60 dispatchers and eight supervisors went through active assailant training," Michael Snowden, the director of the Hamilton County 911 Center, said. 

Snowden says that training helped dispatchers work through an incident they never thought they would have to deal with.

"Literally the crew that handled this call at 9 o'clock on Friday morning was trained on Thursday afternoon," Snowden said. "It's ironic, it's amazing and it makes you wonder what made that happen just like that."

Even after the incident calmed down, this team on their own accord, stayed on the clock to keep the county safe.

"This team and all of our folks -- I feel confident that it doesn't matter what time of day or what day of week that call would have come in, but the folks that handled that call Friday morning are superb and i could not be more proud of them," Snowden said. 

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