CELPIP Listening Part 4 Practice Test: The Dispatcher and the Boy

NARRATOR: A Grande Prairie emergency dispatcher came face to face this week with a voice she has never forgotten. Eleven years ago, Colleen Haddad answered a call from a frightened six-year-old, Noah Whitford, whose mother had collapsed in their kitchen. Noah was too young to know his address, so Haddad patiently coaxed him into fetching an envelope from the mail pile and spelling out the letters, one painstaking line at a time. Haddad stayed on the line, reassuring the boy, until paramedics arrived within minutes, and his mother eventually recovered completely. Haddad never learned how things turned out, since callers rarely get back in touch. Her recording of that call, however, has been played for new recruits ever since. Last month, Noah, now seventeen, wrote to the dispatch centre requesting a tour for a school assignment. A supervisor recognized the surname and quietly arranged a surprise. Noah, who has been accepted into a paramedic training program, had rehearsed a short speech for the occasion, but it deserted him the moment Haddad introduced herself. Haddad retires this spring, and she calls it an extraordinary way to finish.