I just called 911 for the first time in my life

I went to a Doc in the Box about ten years ago when I broke my arm and actually had *bones sticking out *at hilarious angles, and they said, “that’s not an emergency, ya cry-baby!” and wrapped me up and made me make an app’t. to go in the next day for an X-ray!

At my last job the Big Boss left his $100K Benz unlocked in the parking lot, and a stoned guy and his mean dog got into the front seat. I called 911, and it took me five minutes to convince the operator what had happened.

“So you are saying a guy you don’t know and his dog are in the car’s front seat?”

“That’s exactly what I’m saying.”

This is not a 911 story, but I may not get another chance to tell it, and I’ve been waiting a long time. True story.

My sister was buzzing down a country road on her way to visit a client (so she was dressed nicely and wearing heels) when she saw a donkey about to enter the road. Concerned that the donkey would be hit, Sister stopped her car, got out, made an impromptu lasso, and struggled for some time to drag the dirty smelly unwilling donkey uphill a quarter of a mile to the nearest farmhouse.

The farmer was extremely hostile. He did not express appreciation, but instead told her to mind her own business and get off his property.

My sister gave him an icy glare and said, “Look, buddy, I saved your ass”.

I called when I tore the end of my finger off in a car door. The house looked like a murder scene.

I also called when our house was broken into while we were sleeping. They stole all of our keys, my purse, hubby’s wallet and our truck.

No, this was just north of Denver.

:slight_smile:

In Soviet Russia…

We live just outside of town in a main deer thoroughfare, and call 911 regularly when someone collides with a large four-legged idiot. The driver usually is glad when we come out to check on them, and then gets weirded out when all the neighbors come out with their sharp knives and start eyeing the deer covetously.
And 911 on speed dial is a bad thing. My kids managed to dial it accidentally when playing with the phone when they were tiny, and then I was stuttering apologetically into the phone, trying to convince the operator I am not a bad mother. Yeesh.

I’ve called a few times, but I’ve never really considered it a life or death emergency, but it’s very difficult to figure out the non emergency number.

In general its not a problem calling 911 for something that is time sensitive but not life or death. They can drop you off 911 to the non-emergency line if another 911 call comes through. But if it is something you that can wait until you get on the internet or call information to get the number, don’t call 911.

Neither information nor the phone book was able to provide the number!

I’ve called them several times.

1.) I reported a fire that was starting in a restaurant. It was probably an electrical short. Flames had just started. Probably saved a lot of damage to the building.

2.) On a rural road a car was starting to burn. I didn’t have a cell, started to drive to my house to make the call. There were a couple of teenagers walking toward the car. I stopped and asked if it was their car. They said, yes, and that they had just called their dad. Got to my house, called 911. By the time the fire dept. arrived the car was engulfed. I guess the dad didn’t get there in time with his fire extinguisher.

3.) The worst. I was at a youth hockey game in a city owned arena. A grandfather of one of the players went into cardiac arrest. (Yes, it was an exciting game.) Called 911 and the operator was a total idiot. I told her to get an ambulance there ASAP. I told her the name of the arena (remember, city owned), the avenue it was on and the well known landmark that it was adjacent to. She kept insisting she needed an address. There was a fire station a few blocks down the street. In fact the firefighters from the station trained in the parking lot. This went on and on. She needed an address. I got so frustrated I put someone else on the phone. It got to the point that he was yelling at her. He was cursing her by saying stuff like, “I hope that if you are the one with the heart attack whoever calls for help gets someone like you.” Finally, the ambulance got there. They worked the guy over for about 20 minutes and then wheeled him out on a stretcher. Of course, the paramedics don’t want to declare the guy dead at the scene because then they have to get the coroner there and it causes more problems. I saw the guy when he was wheeled out. I’m sure he was dead. We know he did die.

Only dialed 911 once. A man was accosting a woman somewhat, uh, energetically, on the side of the street. I was maybe 12. My mom was driving and didn’t pull over so I don’t know what happened.

Damn, I’m sorry to hear it. :frowning: It’s really ugly when large animals get mixed up with large machines. Hopefully Lamar Mundane’s situation was resolved with less harm.

I’ve only called 911 once, during a snowstorm in an area that does not know how to handle snow. There were cars stuck on a hill, and people driving in the oncoming lane with zero visibility trying to get around it. The dispatcher (who sounded very distracted, I wonder why) said they already knew about it. Okay.

I’ve called 911 three times; twice for others, once for myself.

First: Back in college I lived in a lovely apartment building where my neighbors were, shall we say, a tad mature. At 21, I probably lacked about 50 years on my average co-renters. One evening my next-door neighbor knocked on my door, disoriented and afraid and she said she didn’t want to be alone because she wasn’t feeling well and felt like an elephant was sitting on her chest. Of course I told her to come on in, and I asked her if she shouldn’t call 911 and go to the hospital, but she said no, she didn’t want to bother them, she just wanted company.

Well, being a big ol’ wuss about making calls in those days, I didn’t want to call either, especially since this sweet woman seemed so afraid of going. But after sitting together for about ten minutes, and she was looking more and more pale and uncomfortable, I finally got off my ass and called 911 without her permission. She was taken away by the EMTs and I never did find out if this was indeed a heart attack, but she was in the hospital for a few days so I assume so. When she came back home I knocked on her door to see how she was doing, but she brushed me off. She seemed angry with me for not listening to her. :frowning:

Second time was about a year ago. My sister had… well, this is a bit TMI, but she had a touch of the ol’ cystitis and it was painful for her, as many can attest. On night she was over at my place (we live in the same building) and feeling extremely uncomfortable; she excused herself to my bathroom, where apparently she was bearing down trying to urinate. I wasn’t paying attention, obviously, but I was asking her some question from the other room (we were going to have dinner together and I think I was asking her what she wanted) but she wasn’t answering me.

I went up to the bathroom and pushed the door open and she was sort of rocking, bent over. “I’m really not feeling well,” she said extremely weakly, and I could see her face was sheet-white and there was perspiration on her forehead when I checked to see if she had a fever. I kept asking exactly what she was feeling, but suddenly she leaned back and just… stopped. Her eyes were open but she wasn’t seeing me–it was a horrible thing. It was like her eyes were suddenly fake glass, flat. I wouldn’t have thought you could tell the difference between a conscious person with their eyes open and an unconscious one, but God, there really is.

As I yelled her name and waved my hand in front of her face without any response, I noticed her hands were sort of plucking at her hip – that was the only thing (other than her breathing) that indicated she was alive. I thought it was some kind of sudden seizure, as I’ve read of petit mal seizures where the only sign is the hand plucking thing. Anyway, I let go of her (rather unceremoniously, letting her flop down bending over her stomach – which was serendipitous, as it turns out), fled the bathroom and called 911. By the time I was explaining what was happening, my sister was calling from the bathroom, “Who are you talking to?” “I’m on 911, shut up.” “Why are you calling 911?” “Because you lost consciousness, nimrod, why the hell do you think?” “I did not!” “Yes you did!” “I’m fine, hang up!” “No you aren’t!” This admirable loving exchange went on for another five minutes interspersed with my explaining to the operator what was going on.

By the time the EMS folks arrived, she was feeling much better and I just forced her to sit her ass down in a chair and relax until they checked her out. The EMTs did the usual checkup – eye movement, blood pressure (a little low), no fever, heart-rate fine though a bit fast. Turns out that she hadn’t had anything to drink all day, mainly because she was trying to avoid going to the bathroom. The EMTs speculated that dehydration, coupled with the act of bearing down while trying to urinate, had caused a vasovagal response / syncope episode, hence the sudden low blood pressure and fainting. My sister, being the aforementioned nimrod, didn’t want to go to the hospital as she felt so much better, so she didn’t, but she drank like a fish the rest of the night and got medicated for her cystitis. But I’ll never forget the weird flatness of her eyes staring at me, but not really seeing me. Still gives me the willies.

Third, finally, just about a month ago. As I’ve mentioned a few times I have panic disorder, where symptoms are basically indistinguishable from a heart attack. I’ve gone to the ER four times via taxi when my heart-rate was zooming and I was finding it hard to breathe, and I had the all-too-familiar dread, that feeling of impending death that I’m sure other panic attack sufferers recognize. A month ago, I started to have that impending doom feeling again, but* this* time it was accompanied by a burning feeling in my chest as well as the usual numbness/tingly feeling all along my left side and jaw. I’ve been doing some exercises during my panic attacks and have been relatively able to keep the worst ones at bay by telling myself, “okay, you’ve felt this heart-racing before, you’ve felt exactly the same numbness before, and every single time, it’s been nothing. Your cardiologist says you’re fine. This will pass. This will pass. Give it ten minutes and take a Xanax and see what happens.”

Well, ten minutes past and my Xanax did nothing–my heart was going faster and I still felt this unfamiliar burning thing going on, so I finally talked myself into calling 911. (I’d also remembered reading that people who arrive via ambulance are seen more quickly than those who walk in, probably not surprisngly.) End result, first ten firemen arrive – apparently they arrive first if they’re closer – and they noted the tachycardia and gave me lovely, lovely oxygen (it’s addictive!).

Then the EMS gang arrived, walked me down to the elevator and helped me climb into the ambulance myself (???) and as they take down my information, the ambulance still wasn’t going anywhere. I’m thinking, “Okay, has my name been flagged in the system as a hysteric panic attack / Munchausen freak or something? Why aren’t they getting me to the goddamned hospital already?!” FINALLY we start off, and thus begins the slowest fucking ambulance in the world – I mean, they even stopped at red lights! What the hell, people? I’m not saying I’m some drama queen who requires the whole enchillada of lights and sirens and swerving among Manhattan traffic like Gene Hackman in The French Connection, but do we really have to abide by the traffic rules while I’m possibly having a coronary?!

Turned out, yeah, I was fine. Interestingly the first few moments in the ambulance, they took my BP and it was surprisingly not through the roof at 135 / 90, but by the time I got to the hospital after this long, slow trek there, my BP was 185/120something. (Did I mention that I’m on E 58th street and New York/Cornell Hospital is on E 68th street? This was the slowest ten blocks on record. And it wasn’t as if there was a lot of traffic, either. It’s just that the driver was ambling her way and stopping at every goddamned light.)

So, long story short, I was right to call 911 and I’d do it again (the doctors told me it was smart of me to do this, since the symptoms are so damn similar, and for women, heart attacks present differently ), but next time… and sadly I’m sure there will be a next time… I’m gonna tell the EMTs to step on it. Either that or act much sicker than I appear, because it’s clear they’d diagnosed me as “faker” fairly early on. (Who asks someone with tachycardia and difficulty breathing and burning in her chest to climb up into a freakin’ ambulance?!)

Of course my mistake was going with 911 at all, when I should really have dialed the much easier to remember 0118 999 881 999 119 725…

3.

I’ve called them twice.

The first time, I was 16 IIRC; Mom had been given HRT pills which had, uhm, not gone down well. I call 112 (the emergency number in Spain), the dispatcher wanted me to “put the patient on” since I was a minor. My response was along the lines of “you hear those noises? It’s the patient, trying to breathe in between trying to hork what she doesn’t have any more. She doesn’t even have bilis any more and she’s still. Trying. To throw up. Send a doctor, now.” She did.
The second time, I was living in Miami, renting a room at the house of a woman who lived close to the university. Her daughter was visiting for a few days, as she was attending a course in the area (she normally lived a couple of hours away). I woke up thirsty, went to get a glass of water and heard moaning sounds coming from Mama’s bedroom - and not the good kind. It was bad enough to poke my head in - and find her lying on a blood-stained bed. She’d been bleeding since 10pm but hadn’t called out because “I din’t wanna bother nobody!” I woke up the daughter and got on the phone with 911; we started external and internal hydration (body milk and diluted apple juice), since I could see that she was dehydrated and she was trembling in a way I’d learned to associate with her having low blood sugar (she was diabetic, had cirrosis* from hepatitis, breast cancer survivor - the woman’s medical history was an encyclopedia).

When the emergency folk arrived (fire department? OK, whatever, they know what to do), I went with Mama to the hospital while her daughter looked for the insurance papers and followed in a cab. We were told if we’d found her half an hour later she would have died :eek:

  • I’m sure I’m not spelling it right, sorry

A few years ago there was a circus in a nearby town (Newmarket, ON) and some elephants got out of their enclosure and took a stroll around the neighbourhood. Apparently the 911 call went like this:

Caller: “Ummm…yeah, there’s an elephant walking up our street.”

911: “An elephant?”

Caller: “Yes. He’s eating our hedges.”

911: “Sir, have you been drinking?”

:smiley:

Senior teller, and just the one robbery. I was the only one behind the line when he came in 15 minutes prior to closing with a mask, gloves, completely covered up. I thought it was a joke at first since Halloween had just passed…then I saw the knife. I’d never experienced tunnel vision until that moment.
I reached to unlock my drawer and I guess he thought I was going for the alarm so he jumped over the counter, pushed behind me and started grabbing all the money. I looked over to reception and everyone had disappeared! One girl was hiding under her desk and the others were behind the half-wall. So I just watched him while he cleaned out the top drawer, then jumped over the other counter to flee. He dropped the knife when the chair he used for a footstool swivelled, ha.
Both my boss and I called 911. We set off the distress alarms too.
Never called the cops for fraudulent checks, although we’ve had a couple suspicious persons.

Wow, scary stuff. I’m glad you pulled your alarm as well as calling 911.

A guy that got me said he had a gun, but he probably just had a pointed finger in his pocket. He came back two weeks later and got me again.

We have a lot of deer around here too. Coming home from a Super Bowl party we were getting on the highway when two deer ran across the on-ramp into the whatever-you-want-to-call-the-grassy-circle-part. Luckily we anticipated this and had slowed enough to not hit them. I have actually stored the number for the Highway Patrol since I’ve needed them more than 911 and called to give them a heads-up and see if they could do anything. I had to explain “There hasn’t been an accident yet, but I’m 90% sure there will be one shortly since the deer will have to cross the road again to go anywhere and there will be plenty more people on the road who have been drinking.”

I’ve also called the HP for a suspected drunk driver and the time when some huge box was sitting in the middle of the highway. For all I know it may have been empty, but still not a good thing to have sitting in the road.

It’s good to store the non-emergency number. I’ve used it to report noisy neighbors (I’m not a grinch, it’s just that when I can sing along with your music across the street in the back of my house with the windows closed and the AC on . . . at 2AM, then you’re too loud) and the time there was a bum and his bags sleeping in the playground.

I’ve called a few times, and I’m sure they love to hear from me because it’s just always weirdness with me.

One time I saw an overturned car (on its roof) on the road right next to my office. Called 911 and explained, they sent someone out and poof - the overturned car had disappeared.

Another time we were coming home around 11:00pm and I saw a child - about 4 or 5 years old - in his pajamas, carrying his blankie walking down a major busy street. I tried to follow the kid, but he did not want to be apprehended. I hope they found him.

Going way back, I was leaving work one day and as I was stopped at a light in a residential neighborhood, a guy stumbled out of a house and fell over the hood of my car. He had blood pouring down his face from what I later learned was a gunshot wound to his forehead. There was a HUGE amount of blood. I ran to one of the houses (NOT the one he’d come from) and called 911. I hung around too, but they weren’t too interested in getting my story, which was good with me.

And then just a few weeks ago I noticed a group of 4 - 5 people standing on a freeway overpass trying to lift a boxy something over the railing (as if to drop it on the freeway below) . I shouted at them first and waved my phone at them but that didn’t seem to concern them. I have no idea how that resolved, but I didn’t see any news stories about it so I guess it wasn’t a threat.