When Amy Pullen went to work last week, the Douglas County, Wisconsin, 911 dispatcher had no idea she'd answer the call that would bring an end to weeks of searching: Jayme Closs had been found.
"It's definitely going to be one that you never forget," Pullen said of the call, which came last Thursday after Jayme escaped the residence of her alleged abductor, Jake Thomas Patterson.
Jayme ended up at the door of neighbor Kristin Kasinskas, who called 911 and told Pullen that Jayme Closs was in her house.
"I just remember hearing 'Jayme Closs,' and that's when it took me a couple seconds to realize what she had said," Pullen told CNN Thursday. "And I remember asking her, you know, 'Have you seen this girl's picture?'"
"I wanted to make sure that she knew -- or that this was real," Pullen added. "And she said, 'I'm a hundred percent sure that this is her.'"
Jayme escaped nearly three months after Patterson allegedly killed her parents in their Barron County home and abducted the 13-year-old. He allegedly kept Jayme in his remote residence in rural Gordon, Wisconsin, where she was forced to hide under his bed whenever there was someone else in the house.
Finally, after 88 days, Jayme fled the house while Patterson was out and approached a woman walking her dog, Jeanne Nutter. She took Jayme to Kasinskas' home.
"I didn't save her life," Pullen said. "And nobody else did that day, except she did that for herself."
Kasinskas and Nutter then relayed information about Jayme's condition and her alleged abductor to the 911 dispatcher, such as his name and a description of his vehicle.
Pullen said she didn't feel like she could relax until Patterson had been arrested. She didn't have to wait long. He was taken into custody by a patrol officer who saw a vehicle that matched the description.
"Once a deputy came up and said he was in custody, then I felt like we could breathe," Pullen recalled. "My partner and I just kind of looked at each other, and it was like, then you can breathe and everybody's safe."
The 911 call left a deep impression on Pullen, she said.
"Nothing has ever affected me like this before," she said, but she doesn't feel she did anything that any of her colleagues wouldn't have done. She just did her job.
"I have great partners. I mean, the job I did that day, any of us could have done," Pullen said. "It's just I happened to get the call that day."
"I'm just glad for (Jayme's) family, that they have her back," she said. "They've been through enough. They don't need to go through any more."
The-CNN-Wire
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