PALM BEACH COUNTY, Fla. — Just before Thanksgiving last November, Kasey Thomas, a dispatcher for the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office, received a call that she would never forget.
“It was like a punch in the chest,” Thomas said, recalling the moment she learned three of her colleagues had been struck by an SUV while parked on Southern Boulevard.
The deputies involved were Corporal Luis Paez, Deputy Sheriff Ralph “Butch” Waller, and Deputy Sheriff Ignacio “Dan” Diaz. As Thomas handled the urgent dispatch, she struggled to maintain her composure as the call for help came in from a fellow motorcycle deputy.
“These are like his truly best friends, laid on the pavement,” she remembered. “I had to, like, grit my teeth and bite down and tell myself, OK, don’t cry. You can’t cry. They’re listening for you.”
With nearly two decades of experience, Thomas remained calm during the crisis, sending over 100 units to the scene and staying by her radio for hours. Despite her professionalism, she faced an emotional toll waiting for updates that confirmed the deaths of Paez and Waller while Diaz remained in critical condition.
“It’s hard to know that somebody, that a voice I’ve heard for years, that voice is silenced now,” Thomas said.
She only returned home, what she refers to as going “10-7,” twelve hours after the tragedy began.
“We deal with a lot of emotional stress that we do just tuck away,” Thomas explained. “We’re not physically seeing the things we do. I heard the cries, the screams; I heard the panic in his voice that day.”
Days later, she learned that Deputy Diaz had also passed away, leaving her in a state of shock. The full weight of the loss hit her during the memorial service, where she made their final call, sending Paez, Waller, and Diaz “10-7.”
“Even though they didn’t go 10-7 that day, I was putting them 10-7 and they were going home to their final resting place,” she said. “I needed that. That was my closure.”
For her handling of the tragedy, Thomas has been nominated for Emergency Communications Officer of the Year.
However, she finds the nomination difficult to accept.
“Because of the tragedy behind it, it was really bittersweet,” she said, adding that she sees the recognition as a team effort.
“We all truly came together that day to make sure that we all went home at the end of the day with the confidence that we did what we could,” Thomas said.
