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U-B photo by DARREN ELLISWalla Walla Police dispatcher Stephanie Wyatt goes over her lines with Dan Jackson, a director for the television show Rescue 911. The TV crew is in town taping a segment featuring Wyatt, who helped save an infant girl's life last year by coaching her mother over the phone on how to perform CPR.9-1-1Dispatcher's efforts to be featured on TV showSUMMARY: A crew from the television show Rescue 91! has been in Walla Walla taping a segment featuring a police dispatcher who helped save an infant girl's life.By BRYAN CORLISSOf the Union-BulletinOn the tape, the caller is frantic. Speaking high-pitched and fast, almost squealing with fright, Dana Treganowan tries to tell the police dispatcher what is wrong.“Your baby fell in the tub and is turning blue?” repeats Ruth Dixon, who’s training to become a Walla Walla police dispatcher.“Please hurry,” Treganowan pleads.Stephanie Wyatt, who is training Dixon, takes over. Over the next three minutes and 20 seconds, she tries to talk Treganowan through the process of giving cardiopulmonary resuscitation to an infant.You can hear Treganowan gulping air to blow into her 10-month-old daughter’s lungs.“Breathe for her,” Wyatt urges. “You’re doing fine.”Meanwhile, rescue crews are racing through Walla Walla, trying to find Treganowan’s house.“914 Home Ave.,” Wyatt tells them. “Your cross street is Juniper.”“Are they on the way?” Treganowan asks. “Hurry, please hurry.”The ambulance crew arrives, and Treganowan tells Wyatt she’s hanging up the phone.“OK,” Wyatt says. “Good-bye.”Several minutes pass — it’sscrunched down to seconds on the tape — and the dispatch center phone rings again, this time on a non-emergency line. Wyatt answers: “Hello?”“Here, listen to this,” says Walla Walla County Sheriffs Sgt. Jim Ro-mine. He holds out the phone to pick up the sound of a baby bawling spiritedly.“Oh,” Wyatt says in a choked voice. “Thank you.”It’s the stuff of one of those real-life TV police dramas, the kind of story that should be introduced breathlessly by William Shatner.And in fact, a film crew has been in Walla Walla since Friday, reenacting the episode with Wyatt, Dixon and the Treganowans. They will wrap up shooting Tuesday.And sometime next spring, Shatner will tell a national TV audience on “Rescue 911” how Stephanie Wyatt helped save Caroline Treganowan’s life in June 1991 by talking to her mother.The taping was “a lot of fun,” Dixon said this morning. But “I wouldn’t want to do it everyday for a living,” she added.The segment will be included ina special episode focusing on child safety, “Rescue 911” Producer Traci Verna said.June 14, 1991, was just another quiet Sunday in Walla Walla. As evening came on, Dixon was preparing to operate a communications console at the police dispatch center by herself for the first time.“We just chose a real quiet day,” Wyatt said.At home, Dana Treganowan put daughters Laura, 2, and Caroline, 11 months, into the bathtub aroundSee CPR, Page 2
Newspaper Details
Walla Walla Union Bulletin
Walla Walla, Washington, US
Mon, Nov 09, 1992
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Full Page
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California, DZ 24 Nov 2023
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