First Responders Spotlight: Lyons dispatchers honored for lifesaving actions
Jan 06, 2025
ROCHESTER, N.Y. (WROC) — People like Megan Williams and Makayla Mottler are the "first, first responders."
Inside the 911 center in Lyons, their voices are what people hear right from the start when there's an emergency. One day last summer, this happened:
"I don't wanna say it was a normal day for me," Williams explained. "I got the call from Molly — she was the one driving by and saw the gentleman on the bike, he'd been having what she thought was a heart problem."
Williams took the caller straight through all the steps from her training, immediately thinking the cyclist may be having a heart attack.
"I said what does he look like, how's his breathing, she said he looks like he's turning blue," Williams said. "I went through a breathing diagnostics where we time where their breaths are and he was not getting good breaths, that's when I knew we needed to start CPR."
Williams and the caller did that for about seven minutes until more help could arrive. The man suffered cardiac arrest but he survived. Williams eventually got to meet everyone involved that day.
"I was glad to meet them because you don't hear any of the stories after the call's over," Williams added. "You don't really hear what happens and you especially don't meet them."
As for Mottler's story, this one was off-the-clock. She was out having dinner with friends in Auburn when out of nowhere there was trouble.
"I hear this commotion to the back of me," Mottler said. "I turned around and heard some loud gasping for air, saw a bunch of people surround this lady, and could see whatever they were doing wasn't helping her at the time, she was starting to turn blue."
Without thinking, she rushed to help and performed the Heimlich Maneuver on the person choking. It worked.
"She started breathing, her color came back, it was probably one of the best days of my life," Mottler said.
The sheriff's office also recognized these two dispatchers by saying 911 often represents the silent heroes of the first-responder family and "Well done, ladies!"
News 8 echoes that as well.