by CHRIS BARRY

Name: Sabrina Eryou

Age: 24

Occupation: 911 operator

Salary: Approximately $20 an hour

Bio: This spunky St-Henri gal works the night shift handling emergency calls filtered to Urgence Santé via the general 911 dispatch office. Although she sometimes works as long as 16 hours at a time assessing, among others, calls from shooting victims, stroke cases and people calling in concerned that they might just have "broken" their penises, she says she never allows herself to get stressed out by the gig. She is also in the process of writing her first novel.

Does she ever put people on hold to take personal calls at work? No.

The number of babies she has delivered over the phone to date: Two.

The busiest nights over at the 911 dispatch office: The first of every month, holidays, when the weather starts to get nice and on nights when the moon is full.

Has anybody ever called her up because they've just broken a nail? Yes.

One call that briefly threw her for a loop: That from a man who had just accidentally sliced off his penis.

Is it safe to assume that a freshly penis-less man will sound somewhat traumatized? Yes. "And even worse, I heard on the news the next day that the doctors were unable to re-attach it."

One typical story from the trenches: "A fine upstanding member of society calls up one morning around 4 a.m. saying, 'My girlfriend wanted to try some new experiences, so we got a vibrator but accidentally put it in backwards in her ass and now it's stuck and it's on.' Of course, at the end of the call, we have to record their names, and when I asked for his 'girlfriend's' name, he said, 'I don't know.'"

Another typical story from the trenches: "This guy, who sounded fucked up beyond belief, starts by telling me his sister and her boyfriend were 'making love,' and he proceeded to fist her, basically, and now the chick was hemorrhaging. All I can hear in the background is a guy running around screaming his ass off, yelling, 'I'm gonna die!' But there definitely was a chick there too - also all fucked up. So this raised a few questions for me: If you're getting fisted, why would your brother be there? And also, what the hell was up with the guy screaming? Was it just a threesome gone horribly wrong?"

Where she hangs out: Stereo.

Favourite alcoholic beverage: Vodka and Red Bull.

Something else she does: Plays a mean piano. "But I don't generally like playing in front of other people. It can be such an emotional thing when you really get into it. You know that you are someone special to me if I actually offer to play piano for you. And it doesn't happen very often."

Last book read: Living a Life That Matters, by Harold Kushner.

Musical preferences: "Everything from opera to jazz to electronica."

Words of wisdom: "Life is too short, so you have to enjoy every day."

Comments? dimwit@openface.ca