A 911 dispatcher, Don Pederson’s job is intense.

That was never as true as on April 10, 2007, when a call came in from Federal Way that a 5-year-old boy, playing with a lighter, had caught his clothes on fire.

Pederson of Renton, a dispatcher at Valley Communications in Kent, took the call. A frantic mother was on the line. The third-degree burns meant that the skin on his stomach, back and arm was peeling off.

“It was pretty bad,” Pederson said. He remembers the call, a year later. “It was so intense,” he said. The burns covered about a third of the child’s body.

Pederson immediately verified the address with the mother to ensure medics would go to the right address. Then he turned his attention to calming her.

The mother’s instinct was to put her son into a tub of cold water. But that is about the worst thing someone could do in that situation, according to Pederson.

For his expert handling of the call, Pederson was honored Wednesday in Kent as one of four King County Emergency Medical dispatchers of the year.

Pederson has been a dispatcher for 7 1/2 years. He’s also the offensive line coach for the Kent-Meridian High School football team in Kent.

“The big thing was getting the mom calmed down,” he said. “I was able to do that.”

But he also had to convince her not to put her son in cold bath water.

The concern is that the child could go into shock, he said. And it’s likely there is bacteria in the bathroom. “That could be deadly,” he said, with such critical burns.

He said medics later told him that the boy would probably be fine because of the instructions he gave to the mother. The child was taken to Harborview Medical Center for treatment.

Pederson said dispatchers receive continuing education to deal with medical emergencies, natural disasters and other emergencies.

Dispatchers coordinate the response to all those emergencies.

The awards are given by Public Health – Seattle & King County’s Emergency Medical Services Division during National Public Safety Telecommunicators Week to recognize overall excellence and expert response to critical incidents.

Valley Communications provides police, fire and medical dispatching in South King County, including Renton, managing approximately 57,000 emergency medical calls in 2007.