Branch Inn Explosion 911 Calls

PUEBLO – More than 200 of you helped in the rescue and aftermath of the Branch Inn Explosion. In just two hours, 911 dispatchers took more than 200 calls with reports of the explosion, location and injuries.

NEWSCHANNEL 13is the only news station to obtain the 911 calls from the Branch Inn explosion and talk with one of the dispatchers.

Caller:“I’m calling for an explosion at the Branch Inn on Union and C Street.”911: “Yeah, we’re getting everybody going.”

That’s just a sample of the 911 calls. Annamarie Elliss is one of four 911 dispatchers who heard all of them.

“The first call I took was kind of like ‘there’s an explosion somewhere in the area.’ They’re not too sure of specifics, but then when the next caller’s hysterical and she’s screaming and she’s saying there’s people in the street, then you go ‘oh, this is a real call, this is the real deal,'” says Elliss. “To have to hear it again, it kind of brings that flood of emotions back again of all that happened that night.”

Pueblo dispatch took more than 200 calls in the two hours after the explosion. NEWSCHANNEL 13 was given a CD with more than two-dozen calls in just eight minutes.

“That next call could be the vital piece of information you need to save a life,” says Elliss. “We help people, but I don’t consider myself a hero at all.”

None of the 911 calls came from injured victims.