So I am not quiet peeved enough at this to put it in the pit, but it is disturbing none the less.
Apparently some people think that 911 is for weather conditions and directions.
Apparently 90% of the 911 calls received are not emergencies.
Come on! Who in their right mind would call 911 to get a number for their cell company? I am at a loss.
I have only lost faith in humanity as far as the Idiot Section is concerned. Unfortunately, a lot of them have phone access. sigh
911 operators should be able to easily (like, two keystrokes) report people who abuse 911 to the phone companies, who should then cut off service for a while each time. First offense might be a week without phones, second might be two weeks, and so on.
There is a small chance they may actually need 911 during that time, but there is also a pretty good chance a real call was blocked by their crap. In the long run, this should improve the responsiveness of 911 services by making the idiots less quick to abuse it.
Oh, don’t get me started.
“Um, yeah, my cell phone isn’t working…”
“Um, my electricity’s off…”
“My toilet’s overflowing…”
“I need a phone number for blah blah blah…”
What’s especially irritating is the fact that when 911 rings, it’s a nerve-jangling shrill brraaaannngggg of a ring, totally different from the gentler tones of the non-emergency lines. When you hear it go off your adrenaline amps up. When it turns out to be B.S., you are overcome with a desire to reach through the phone and give the caller a few flicks 'round the earhole. sigh Maybe someday we’ll have the technology…
I say that a massive surcharge or criminal charges (or both) should be applied to non-emergency use of 911. I also think that people who use emergency rooms in hospitals for non-emergencies should be charged the same way as well. I think folks might learn the difference between emergency and non-emergency real fast that way.
Of course, what would need to happen to make this viable would be for poor folks to actually have access to prompt medical care so they don’t have to call 911 or go to an emergency room just to get medical care.
I’ve answered 911 calls that were about the following:
– Missing pet
– Water to the house was shut off
– Newspaper was not delivered that morning
– Noisy party next door, late at night
– Garbage was not picked up that morning
To the teeming millions I ask: Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?
Insurance companies already do this. And emergency rooms perform triage all the time. People who don’t need emergency care don’t get it over those who do.
This is a classic.
Snopes declares it undetermined.
the transcript. . .
Dispatcher: Sheriff’s department, how can I help you?
Woman: Yeah, I’m over here . . . I’m over here at Burger King right here in San Clemente.*
Dispatcher: Uh-huh.
Woman: Um, no, not San Clemente; I’m sorry, I live in San Clemente. I’m in Laguna Niguel, I think, that’s where I’m at.
Dispatcher: Uh-huh.
Woman: I’m at a drive-through right now.
Dispatcher: Uh-huh.
Woman: I went . . . I ordered my food three times. They’re mopping the floor inside, and I understand they’re busy . . . they’re not even busy, okay, I’ve been the only car here. I asked them four different times to make me a Western Barbeque Burger. Okay, they keep giving me a hamburger with lettuce, tomato, and cheese, onions, and I said, “I’m not leaving . . .”
Dispatcher: Uh-huh.
Woman: I want a Western Burger because I just got my kids from Tae Kwon Do, they’re hungry, I’m on my way home, and I live in San Clemente.
Dispatcher: Uh-huh.
Woman: Okay . . . she said, she gave me another hamburger; it’s wrong. I said four times, I said, “I want it to go. Can you go out and park in front?” I said, “No, I want my hamburger right.” So then the . . . the lady came to the manager. She . . . well whoever she is, she came up and she said, um, she said, um, “Do you want your money back?” And I said, “No, I want my hamburger. My kids are hungry and I have to jump on that toll freeway.” I said, “I am not leaving this spot,” and I said, “I will call the police,” because I want my Western Burger done right! Now is that so hard?
Dispatcher: Okay, what exactly is it you want us to do for you?
Woman: I . . . send an officer down here. I . . . I want them to make me . . .
Dispatcher: Ma’am, we’re not gonna go down there and enforce your Western Bacon Cheeseburger.
Woman: What am I supposed to do?
Dispatcher: This is . . . this is between you and the manager. We’re not gonna go and enforce how to make a hamburger; that’s not a criminal issue. There’s . . . there’s nothing criminal there.
Woman: So I just stand here . . . so I just sit here and [block]?
Dispatcher: You . . . you need to calmly and rationally speak to the manager and figure out what to do between you.
Woman: She did come up, and I said, “Can I please have my Western Burger?” She . . . she said, “I’m not dealing with it,” and she walked away. Because they’re mopping the floor, and it’s also the fact that they don’t want to . . . they don’t want to go through there . . . and . . . and . . .
Dispatcher: Ma’am, then I suggest you get your money back and go somewhere else. This is . . . this is not a criminal issue. We can’t go out there and make them make you a cheeseburger the way you want it.
Woman: Well . . . that is . . . that . . . you’re supposed to be here to protect me.
Dispatcher: Well, what are we protecting you from, a wrong cheeseburger?
Woman: No . . .
Dispatcher: Is this like . . . is this a harmful cheeseburger or something? I don’t understand what you want us to do.
Woman: Just come down here. I’m not . . . I’m not leaving.
Dispatcher: No ma’am, I’m not sending the deputies down there over a cheeseburger. You need to go in there and act like an adult and either get your money back or go home.
Woman: She is not acting like an adult herself! I’m sitting here in my car; I just want them to make my kids a . . . a Western Burger.
Dispatcher: Ma’am, this is what I suggest: I suggest you get your money back from the manager and you go on your way home.
Woman: Okay.
(*We’re aware that the Western Bacon Cheeseburger is a menu item offered by Carl’s Jr., not Burger King. The caller either misidentified the type of burger she was trying to order or misstated the name of the restaurant. Both chains have outlets in Laguna Niguel, and Burger King has periodically promoted a Western Whopper burger.)
My sister worked as a 911 operator for a few years in a large metropolitan city. Many of her calls were non-emergency to the agency, but not to the caller. She stated that at least 60% of the nonemergency calls were from people with mental health issues.
I do know that she had one lady who called at least once/day about the aliens. One night when she didn’t call they sent officers on a well check - and it was a good thing as the caller was very ill.
Part of the job.
Locally they often encourage you to call 911 for routine complaints, such as a dog barking. After hours and on weekends there is no one answering calls to the sheriff or city police unless you use 911, not even voice mail.
A couple of months ago, I had a tenant arrested for drugs, “attempt to distribute”, the cop told me. A day or two after his arrest I was visited (it’s a duplex) by a young guy looking for him. I told the guy he wasn’t home and he asked me to tell him Tony had been there and was staying at (a local motel), he said it was important and he had something for him. This was the weekend, so I tried to call the cop who had given me his card, thinking the obvious. There were three numbers on the card including a cell, only the cell had voice mail and none was answered, nor did I get a call back from the cell. After a couple of hours I called 911 and tried to explain the situation to the operator. She acted like I was a crackpot and when I told her that I had tried the numbers on the card, she replied that of course no one answered, it was the weekend and police officers had to have time off too. Finally she agreed to try to contact the cop in question. A few minutes later she called me back and told me that the cop said it was unimportant and not to worry about it, her tone was not friendly.
On another point, the police in Portland, Or. have decided to hang up on 911 calls after 20-30 seconds if no one is on the line. They say that too many calls are placed by cells in a pocket or purse, or by children. OK, but what about someone whose being abducted, or raped, or hiding from an intruder and is afraid, or unable to talk, 20-30 seconds isn’t much time.
I know there are a lot of abuses, but it goes the other way too. A few months ago we had a fire at the Historic Fort Clatsup, of Lewis and Clark fame. A woman saw the flames from a distance and reported it to the local 911 operator. The operator told her it was the sunrise, that they often had calls like that, the woman tried to convince her that it didn’t look like any sunrise, but the operator was more insistant so she gave up. It wasn’t until about 15 minutes and a couple more calls that they dispatched a cop to check it out. The Fort was a total loss.
Can I get a cite on this? I’m skeptical about it, because I’ve always heard it to be that if a 911 call is received, and there is no answer, a cop will always be dispatched to the location, if it can be determined (obviously you can’t always get one from a cell phone.)
The other fun part about 911 calls are the ones that seem legit on the dispatchers end, but those of us on the EMS end realize 911 was not needed. Like the woman who called because her infant had a fever. OK, sure, that could be a reason to go to the hospital, but is there any reason you can’t drive there yourself? Or, better yet, walk, because according to the address dispatch gave us, you live right across the street from the freakin’ hospital! It will take about ten times as long for us to get your child there than for you to walk there. Oh, but that’s right, people who arrive in an ambulance usually get wheeled right into a room and don’t have to wait. :rolleyes:
And then there’s the couple who’s kid fell and hit his head on a table, getting a head laceration. Naturally, I’m thinking he’s bauling his head off, blood gushing everywhere…nope. A half-inch cut on his head, and he is sitting as quiet as can be, and by the time we got there, the bleeding had stopped. Unless the kid seems to be losing conciousness, is having trouble speaking clearly, or otherwise is not acting normally, you don’t need to go to the ER for a half-inch cut that is no longer bleeding. Slap a freakin’ band aid on him and let me go back to bed.
Bouv, speaking as a parent who’s seen a kid with a forehead cut…
Damn those forehead cuts gush like a geyser! I could see a nervous parent over reacting. I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt on that one.
I called the non emergency number and talked to the district commander about a car alarm that was going off every single friggen night, sometimes a few times a night, at all hours. The thing was clearly malfunctioning, but asswipe decided not to get it fixed, and since he was shutting it off remotely, I had no idea where he lived. The commander told me to go ahead and call 911 next time it happened, since my neighborhood is pretty low crime and the beat cop could possibly right down the block.
So the next night, 3am, it goes off. I get up and call 911. Explain my conversation I had with the commander and what was going on… And get an earfull from the psycho operator. No police are dispatched, and I’m more annoyed than ever. The next day, I called the commander back, and gave him an earfull. He told me to call 911 again if it happened. That night, 2am, it goes off. I call 911, and I’m nearly certain I get the same operator. She was sweet as could be and a cop was over there while the alarm was still going off. That was the last time I heard it.
[QUOTE=bouv]
Can I get a cite on this? I’m skeptical about it, because I’ve always heard it to be that if a 911 call is received, and there is no answer, a cop will always be dispatched to the location, if it can be determined (obviously you can’t always get one from a cell phone.)
In our center, the only time we dispatch to open line cell calls when we have a location is when there is an indication that there is a valid emergency. We DO get the cell phone in the pocket call quite a bit. I had one a couple weeks ago where it was open line, nobody was talking directly to me, but there was a woman saying “PLEASE let me out of the car! PLEASE PLEASE!” and every few minutes she’d give an intersection. That was the only information I had, it was not a cell call where I could tell her location. I didn’t know what kind of vehicle she was in or anything. It was very frustrating because it sounded like she was being hit, and I heard a male say “yeah, I’ll take you home, then I’m going to kill myself!” Ugh. We did the best we could but in the end didn’t find them 
If it’s a land line, we dispatch for open line calls with no response.
Once I had a call that went something like this:
Me: 911, what is your emergency?
Caller: Yeah, I need the number to the hotline.
Me: What hotline?
Caller: I need the number to the hotline.
Me: What’s going on, what kind of hotline do you need? Suicide hotline?
Caller: No, someone told me I can call 911 and get the number to the hotline.
Me: There are many different kinds of hotlines, what do you need?
Caller: The hotline to find girls…
Me: Umm, you mean, like, as in a date?
Caller: Yes.
Me: Uhh, no, you cannot call 911 for that. Goodbye.
[QUOTE=A.R. Cane]
Locally they often encourage you to call 911 for routine complaints, such as a dog barking. After hours and on weekends there is no one answering calls to the sheriff or city police unless you use 911, not even voice mail.
Each area has it’s own way of doing things. We don’t encourage people to call 911 for barking dogs, in fact, we hang up on them after we give them the non emergency number to call. I know in some places, whenever you call 911 from a cell phone, you get a call center that needs to connect you to the city you need and it’s much faster to call the local number. Where we are, it’s much faster to dial 911 if you have a real emergency because we answer both the 911 calls and the non emergency police number. If you are calling on a friday and saturday night to report an emergency, you will hold for a while if you are calling the regular police number. So it depends on where you live 
[anecdote]
NephewRojelio managed to call 911 one time ( I think he was three or four ) Auntie and I had no idea until a nice police officer came knocking on the door. The officer wanted to know if anyone had called 911. “No, I don’t think so”, I sez. The nice officer says that the 911 dispatcher heard a child screaming and wanted to know if there were children in the house. “Yes”, I sez. So now the nice officer needs to actually see the child in question. So I yell out for the one I suspect the most and he comes flying out from the hall, sliding across the tile floor in his stockinged feet, clear across and out of sight into the kitchen. “Is that enough?”, I ask. “Plenty” sez the barely-able-to-keep-from-laughing officer.
[/anecdote]
We’ve joked about wanting to install a button where we could press it and send a couple of volts across the line for the really obnoxious people, like the guy who wanted the number to find a date, or the guy who wanted to report an officer sleeping in his car, witnessed in the LATE 80’s!!! BZZZZZZZT!!! But of course, it’s just a joke and a way to relieve stress in a sometimes stressful job.
Judging by the numbers, there’s a pretty good chance that another non-emergency crap call was blocked, and a small chance that a real call was blocked. I suspect your system would eventually give 911 operators a lot of free time.
Does any other municipality have the 311-style service, like NYC? It’s where you can ask gummint questions for non-emergencies and report non-life-threatening things. I’ve used it to find out about an address to send a property tax abatement form and report some stuck traffic lights on the major street near me. I’m sure a lot of people waste their time, but at least it’s not 911’s time.
It’s becoming more and more common. Dallas has one, for example.
The Portland 911 policy change was on a local TV news broadcst within the last week or two. I tried searching and couldn’t find the story, but my computer is old and I’m on a dial up connection, so I didn’t pursue it too far.
I have no doubt that there is a lot of misuse of 911, but I also think there are serious problems at some call centers, perhaps due to poor training, low pay, poor supervision, etc.
The local Portland stations are: KATU, KOIN, KGW and KPTV if anyone wants to try searching for the story. I don’t recall which station had the story.