Helena Highway Patrol dispatchers honored for answering thousands of emergency calls

Helena’s Montana Highway Patrol Communications Center has already handled 45,581 calls for service this year, a pace of about 460 calls a day from a room that keeps law enforcement and emergency response moving across all 56 Montana counties.

Attorney General Austin Knudsen and Montana Highway Patrol Colonel Kurt Sager visited the Helena center on April 13 to recognize dispatchers during National Public Safety Telecommunicators Week, observed April 12-18. The state said the visit was meant to spotlight the people who answer emergency calls, coordinate responses and keep troopers and other officers connected to the public around the clock.

That work starts with the voice on the other end of the line. The dispatchers at the Helena center are emergency medical dispatch trained, which means they are prepared to handle a wide range of emergency and non-emergency situations while helping determine what kind of response is needed. The center operates 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year, and serves not only Montana Highway Patrol but also Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks, Montana Motor Carrier Services, Montana Probation and Parole and other agencies.

The workload has remained heavy for years. The center handled 165,769 calls last year and 162,177 the year before. KTVH reported that the MHP communications center has 16 dispatchers, that they cover all 56 counties and that they send troopers to between 250 and 400 calls each day. The same report said the center received more than 145,000 calls for service in 2025.

For Lewis and Clark County, the numbers point to a public safety system that depends on a small group of dispatchers most people never see unless a crash, a missing-person report or another crisis puts them on the line. Communications center manager Curtis Buckley has said the work can go unnoticed because it happens automatically, but the volume in Helena shows how much rides on each decision made in that room.