E. HOLMES DISTRICT — Calling 9-1-1 is never done under pleasant circumstances.

Whether there’s a fire, a critical injury, a medical emergency or something the police need to attend to, the situation is never pretty and the call is almost always made under extreme duress.

Thanks to a donation from the officials regulating the 9-1-1 system in Holmes County, the East Holmes Local Schools nurse, Tami Bucklew, was able to purchase an interactive 9-1-1 simulator from Retina Systems.

The simulator is in a large black box that looks like a briefcase. Inside there is a telephone, a hand control center and a receiver.

“After I explain to the kids what to use 9-1-1 for, they can come up and try it out,” explained Bucklew, who mentioned she asks teachers to have the kids work on their addresses so they will be able to tell the faux-9-1-1 operator who “answers” the call the kids make on the phone.

Bucklew allows the kids to dial 9-1-1, and if they dial an incorrect number, all they get will be a dial tone. After that, a recording of an operator answers the phone, and the kids give their name, their address and tell what is going on.

“I always tell the kids that the operator on the phone is their friend,” said Bucklew. “I tell them that if they come home and mom is unconscious or something and they’re all alone, the operator on the phone will stay on the line with them until help is dispatched.”

Bucklew mentioned she emphasizes the operator will walk the children through exactly what they should and shouldn’t do, which is comforting when imagining oneself in an emergency situation.

Bucklew is faced with an interesting group of students when she presents information to the student body of East Holmes Local Schools, which has a very large Amish population. The series of events changes a bit for Amish kids as opposed to their English counterparts, many of whom have been playing on a cell phone or smart phone of some type since they were old enough to fish it out of their mother’s purse.

“A lot of times, Amish kids still have a community phone or a neighbor’s phone that they can run and use,” explained Bucklew.

Bucklew brings the system into kindergarten through first grade classrooms across the district. She mentioned she has been able to bring the system into a number of special education classrooms as well.

Bucklew noted even though kids seems pretty confident about making the simulated phone call during her initial presentation, they almost always get nervous when it’s time for them to give it a try.

“Just like many of the presentations I give, kids are hearing about it in school and then they are taking that information home and spreading it to their younger siblings,” said Bucklew, who mentioned she hopes to bring the simulator out to various health and safety events throughout the county as the year goes on to expose as many children to the device as possible.

Reporter Emily Votaw can be reached at 330-287-1655 or evotaw@the- daily-record.com. She’s on Twitter @EmVotaw.