O yes please do a ‘Ask the 911 taker…’ thread!
The ask the 911 calltaker thread is started for anybody interested. (In its own thread…)
I called once. I was driving on the highway in pouring rain and saw something that might have been a car in a ditch so I called it in. The operator seemed a bit annoyed that I hadn’t stopped to check more definitively, but by the time I decided that it really could of been something I was a bit down the road and you can’t really turn around on a divided highway.
Never had to, although I did call the fire department non-emergency number once when our carbon monoxide detector went off (as recommended in the “Emergencies” section of our phone book). The operator took the info and said that they’d send someone by to check it out as a safety precaution. A fire truck with full crew showed up about 5 minutes later and spent some time tromping through the house taking readings with their instruments before concluding it was a false alarm from our detector. One of the firemen said that it was SOP to check any such alarm and they always turn out a full crew as it makes it easier if the truck needs to respond to a real emergency while on the call.
(We also had a paramedic show up about 30 seconds after the fire truck, but that was because he lived next door, saw the fire truck pull up, and came over in case it was a medical emergency response.)
A few months ago someone broke into my cars. They did no damage (I, uhh, had left them both unlocked, which I very rarely do), and there wasn’t anything of value in them to be stolen. They tossed the stuff in the glove boxes, and that’s about all.
Since it wasn’t in any sense an emergency, I didn’t think it was a good idea to waste the time of the 911 people. So I tried looking on the county Web site for the Police Dept’s non-emergency number. I searched for about 10 minutes, but couldn’t find anything clearly identified as the police non-emergency. So I tried a couple of numbers, but since it was a Sunday morning I didn’t get through to a human.
So I reluctantly called 911. They took the information and said an officer would call back to take the report. Which is what happened.
Had a (partially) amusing one a while back. Managing a restaurant, an employee had a seizure (he liked to drink, drinking interfered with his medicine, it was almost routine, but we had to call so we were protected in case something did go wrong). I saw him start his seizure, fading out before he collapsed, and told another employee to call 911. A couple minutes later, after I’d caught him, put him into a relatively safe position on the floor, she walks up staring at the phone, “It’s not ringing.” Another employee’s with the guy, and like I said, we could pretty much call it when he was going to seize, so most of the crew was fairly casual about it, except for this lady, who was older and part time, hadn’t really seen him do it before, or had been busy when he had.
She was right, there was no dial-tone. She dialed 9-1, missing the last 1, and apparently held it to her ear for a good minute or two (it was cordless, so it didn’t beep at her like a regular landline off the hook for too long would have) waiting for someone to pick up. You joke about that stuff, but to actually have someone in their early 50s do it, is a little unnerving, especially when you think about if it would have been a more serious call. Needless to say, it wasn’t something she lived down too quickly, and I made sure to appoint someone else the other times it happened, with her more than happy to avoid the phone.
It was a good lesson for me, though. Some people just panic and lose their ability to perform otherwise simple tasks.
Let’s see if I can remember them all.
[ul]
[li]Once or twice for a domestic disturbance with my neighbors. They lived just downstairs, and over time their arguments got louder and more frequent until it got to the point where I could both clearly hear them, and her tone had changed from angry to scared. I don’t recall if I actually heard any thudding, but it was enough for me to get on the phone. I locked myself in my apartment and they got quiet a short time afterwards, so I’m assuming the cops came over to check things out. He moved out shortly after, and so did she a little after that.[/li]
[li]Once while waiting at the bus stop, a car came rolling down the street with flames licking out from under the hood. I hightailed it to the bus stop a block away and called from there. The dispatcher said they’d already received calls on it, a fire truck was there a minute later.[/li]
[li]Again waiting at a bus stop, a car was driving (slowly, thankfully) up to the intersection when his light went red. But oops, his brakes don’t work at all, and he continues to roll through, only stopping by hitting an ice cream cart being pushed through the crosswalk. It was a good thing it wasn’t the freakin baby carriage that was also crossing the street. I’m watching this shaking my head, when the light changes and the guy actually drives off in his non-stopping car. Out comes the phone. Don’t know the results of that. Hope they were able to find him and give him a good yelling-at along with some very expensive tickets.[/li]
[li]Once immediately after being unsuccessfully mugged. It was a dumb 16-year-old girl, fat, out of shape, and incompetent at the whole crime thing, doing it for kicks. She was clearly not expecting me to hit back. She knocked me down, I knocked her down, she lost her shoes and her cell phone (which she demanded back, whereupon I very nearly laughed in her face), and I was on my phone with the dispatcher while she was still trying to get back into her getaway car (she fell out and the rear wheel ran over her leg before she got herself in). I was reading the license plate to dispatch while they were driving away. They got pulled over in less than 10 minutes, I got a ride over to ID her, and spent the entire night til 5am at the police station making my report and icing my head (about six hours). I was seriously pissed off at this point, as this was week 6 of The Virus from Hell (like a really bad cold, but would not. go. AWAY.) and I was exhausted and had missed my antibiotic dosing that was supposed to happen right before bed. (I don’t know if the meds made any difference or not… my family doc gave me the scrip but when I saw my oncologist a short time later – I’d already had the appointment scheduled, so I had him do the injury-check – he insisted it had to be viral. Anyway.) Plus, I had a goose egg on my head and she broke the strap on my bag. Grrr.[/li][/ul]
I think that’s it. There were some minor and one major auto accidents in my youth, but someone else called those in.
-
I had a ground level apartment with rock facing. One evening I glanced out the sliding glass doors to see a guy cross my patio and begin climbing the rock exterior wall to the balcony of the apartment above me. Pretty brazen! I called 911 and they were there in 3 minutes. It ended up to be the upstair neighbor’s drunk boyfriend trying to get in her apartment. He was concerned, he said, because she didn’t answer her door. She didn’t answer her door because she wasn’t home. :rolleyes:
-
I called 911 for myself about 3 years ago when I almost passed out suddenly. It scared the hell out of me, and I was living alone. The paramedics came and checked me out but I declined to be transported to the hospital.
-
I called 911 about 6 years ago when I had an apartment overlooking a park. There had been a festival or craft show in the park the day before and a bunch of folding tables, chairs, and tents had been left for pick up the following day. A bunch of teenage boys happened by and started smashing everything. I called 911 and then watched the po-pos chase them out of the park.