"I've got a knife, and I'm going to kill myself."

Ottawa County Sheriff's Office dispatcher Wendy Ritterbach didn't know what was coming next after she answered the 911 call early Sunday morning and heard a man say he was barricaded in his car with a knife he planned to use on himself.

But she didn't miss a beat.

After about an hour on the phone with the man, Ritterbach persuaded him to come out of the car and drop the large serrated butcher knife he had in his hand.

For Ritterbach, the call was simply doing what she is supposed to do.

"It was really nothing," said Ritterbach, 30, who as been a dispatcher deputy for 31Ú2 years. "Just doing my job."

But Ottawa County Sheriff Bob Bratton and his administrators had a different view of the situation, saying Ritterbach's performance is something that should be applauded.

The call also proved that Bratton and his administrators made the correct decision selecting Ritterbach as one of three deputies to undergo training to become a crisis negotiator.

"I think she did an excellent job," said Bratton as he listened to snippets of the hour-long 911 call.

The call playback revealed a calm Ritterbach talking with the man who was comfortable enough with her to use her first name.

"That's the heart of it," Bratton said. "The situation went down just as you would like it to."

Ritterbach has not yet been trained for crisis negotiations and was reacting to the call on her instincts, Sheriff's office Communications Supervisor Sgt. Jim Lucas said.

The call was not as simple as Ritterbach made it seem on the 911 tape.

In fact, Sheriff's Deputy James Karr and two Port Clinton police officers at the scene had decided moments before Ritterbach told them the man was coming out that the only way to resolve the situation was to quickly approach the car and get the knife away, according to a letter the deputy wrote to Bratton commending Ritterbach.

"I'm not sure what Deputy Ritterbach said to him to make him give up, but I feel she did an excellent job of keeping the male subject calm and ending the incident peacefully and without injury to anyone," Karr wrote.

At first, the man, who was upset over a recent break-up with an ex-girlfriend, would not tell Ritterbach where he was located, Lucas said.

The man also said he wanted his ex-girlfriend to come to him and get in his car so they could talk.

"He was asking the impossible," he said. "She explained that was not an option."

The situation could been much more serious, especially considering the two murder-suicides that occurred over the weekend in Toledo involving people who were dating, Bratton said.

Ritterbach said she drew on her dispatcher training to gather information.

"You stay calm because you think of what to say next. If I'm excited, he's going to be excited," she said.

The support of her co-workers that night was also key, Ritterbach. Other dispatchers handled all other calls, allowing her to focus on this man.

"Everyone takes responsibility for the call," she said. "It's all a group effort."