Lovetinsky wins dispatcher of the year award

    Washington County dispatcher Sandy Lovetinsky will be recognized as the ?telecommunicator of the year? in the state of Iowa at an awards banquet in Des Moines later this month. The Iowa Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials (APCO) announced that Lovetinsky won the honor for her performance during one especially harrowing call she took nearly a year ago.

    Lovetinsky fielded a call from a woman who was riding in a truck driven by her boyfriend on Highway 218. The woman?s boyfriend passed out at the wheel while the truck was going down the road. Lovetinsky said the woman was hysterical when she called 911.

    ?She was very frantic,? said Lovetinsky. ?I asked if she could reach the brake, and she said that there was a console in the middle of the truck, so she couldn?t reach it. I asked her to put the vehicle in neutral, and when it slowed down, to ease it off the road. She did that very well.?

For more, see our March 18 print edition.