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In going through your paper this Saturday, you will have likely noticed our two-page spread honoring public safety telecommunicators (PST) as part of the upcoming National Public Safety Telecommunicators Week April 13-19.

Since the 1980s, this week has honored those behind the mic who are often the first responders for any call — emergency or non-emergent — and who are responsible for getting you the help you need.

With such a long history of honoring these men and women, we have to admit that we’ve been somewhat remiss in honoring these people ourselves. Through the year we honor a number of first responders for the work they do, but this is just the first time we’ve honored this specific arm of law enforcement.

What we have found through putting these pages together featuring the story starting on our front page is that those who take the calls on people’s worst days are well worth being recognized for what they do day in and day out.

It’s a stressful job as they field thousands upon thousands of calls each week, often that come in at the same time and require them to juggle each and every one in a coordinated effort that to those outside of the job would find overwhelming.

It leads us to another conclusion and that’s in regard to the effort of identifying them as first responders, work that’s been going on at both the state and federal levels.

In our eyes, this seems like a common sense move that has taken far too long already to make a reality. Telecommunicators exemplify first responders because they are literally the first to respond to an incident just by answering the 911 and non-emergent lines.

In answering these calls they become a real time contact between those requiring help and those responding, whether that be the fire department, law enforcement or ambulance. Telecommunicators play an ever-evolving role in getting whatever incident might be resolved as they monitor and relay information as it comes in as it’s made available.

We urge legislators to find a way to make this effort to name telecommunicators as first responders so they can be put on equal footing with other emergency responders, and thus recognizing the all-important work they are a part of.

And for the public, we hope you commit to memory the faces in the pictures that could be on the other end of the line when you need help, because what they are doing in order to get emergency services rolling in a time of need is nothing less than the work of heroes.