The previous night, Ryan's daughter Pamela Cooper, 49, had worked a shift of more than 15 hours at Phoenix's 911 dispatch center. Cooper was a 20-year veteran of the dispatch center, but it was her first week back after six weeks recovering from COVID-19. She was still feeling unwell but was out of paid leave and supporting both her mother, a widow on social security, and her husband, whose unemployment has run out. “She said, 'I got to work to pay the bills,'" Ryan remembers. Courtesy of Shirley Ryan The first few days were difficult, but on Friday, February 26, Cooper really started to go downhill.