Public Safety Communicators or 911 dispatchers deal with life and death situations on a daily basis.

"It is an extremely stressful job," said Marty Bilbo, a public safety communicator for eight years.

The Division Chief of Communications Chris Celaya told KFOX the fire department has a high turn over of public safety communicators. Right now, the 911 call center needs seven communicators and currently the department has no candidates. Another blow includes the fact that they've lost some communicators to the Fort Bliss dispatch center.

"Unfortunately, if they're able to pay them a little better, we're going to suffer a little bit," said Celaya.

The news of the shortage concerned some El Pasoans.

"The fact that there's a shortage is scary," said Cynthia Serafin, from East El Paso.

"I called 911 and there has been a couple of times they didn't answer. A couple of times I got call backs and then I didn't get anything," said Carrie Silva, from East El Paso.

Celaya said the public shouldn't worry because they have all their empty slots covered.

"Unfortunately, what that means is for the existing people they have to work some overtime to cover those slots," said Celaya.

But it's not too unfortunate when these public safety communicators say they live for their job.

"What helps you deal with that is the end of the day when you go home, you know you did something good for someone," said Bilbo.