When did you (or SYK) use a cel in an emergency?

In My Humble Opinion
41

Here I think is the crux of the problem. While being stranded out in the middle of BFE with a couple of flat tires, or even someone injured but not dying and can make it too a phone somewhere may only be classified as an 'inconvenience" to you, it would dang well be an emergency to me.

And yes, I would say many of us have a sense of perspective about this, and while we COULD walk, crawl, ask or find a land line in some of these situations, the fact that we used a cell phone doesn’t negate or change that to US it’s an emergency and that it changed the outcome.

As far as personal stories, I have used my cell phone numerous times to catch a fleeing suspect and i’ve lost radio contact with the other people I work with.

Again, it may be inconvenience to you, but it’s an emergency to me and needed prompt immediate attention.

42

On 9/11/2001 my daughter was working in NYC and living across the river in NJ. She eventually walked to a ferry and got to the Jersey side of the Hudson, and her husband was over there somewhere looking for her. There were simply mobs and mobs of people all in the same situation. They used their cell phones to find each other in the crowds. Emergency? I think so. The original game plan had been for her to walk to the GW Bridge and be met there.

43

Sister, brother, dad and friend were in a rollover accident, on a rural road about 5 miles or so out of town. Three of them got out of the car and tried to flag down the two cars that passed, but they were unsuccessful. Eventually, they found a flashlight and someone found their phone and was able to call 911.
I suppose they could have left my sister there, hanging upside down with a broken neck, while they walked around trying to find someone who would let them in at 1 am, but since the houses are few and far between out there, I’m glad they had the cell.

44

Hopefully, my story contains enough quantitative evidence to convince you that a cell phone may have saved someone’s life.

We were travelling westbound on Sunrise Highway in the Hamptons on the Monday of Labor Day weekend. We saw the immediate aftermath of a serious motorcycle/car collision. My husband and I are both Wilderness First Responders, so we pulled over and were first on the scene, attending to the severely injured motorcyclist. My husband attempted to call 911 on his cell. But we had AT&T and couldn’t get a signal. Fortunately, someone else pulled over who had Verizon service, and called 911. The victim definitely had 2 broken legs, broken ribs, and a crushed shoulder.

But more importantly, he had a head injury. In the approx. 30 minutes between the time I first started caring for the victim and the time he was taken away, he slipped from a fully conscious and alert state, through the various levels of consciousness, down to being barely pain responsive. His pupils were blown. These signs indicate a serious head injury. In cases like this, getting the patient to the trauma center as quickly as possible is crucial in order to prevent or minimize brain injury.

Time was so critical in this case that they shut down the entire westbound side of Sunrise Highway so they could land the Life Flight helicopter. And if you know anything about the way traffic is on the east end of Long Island at the end of a long holiday weekend, you know that that’s something they would only do in the case fo the most dire emergency.

If a cell phone wasn’t used, how long would it have taken to get to a phone? I don’t know. I didn’t see any phones on the highway. Would someone have had to drive to the next exit and search for a phone? And how could I ensure that they actually did it?

I couldn’t find any reported deaths, so I can only hope that means that the victim didn’t die. And if he made it, then every second saved in getting him to the trauma center reduced his potential brain injury.

45

Gosh, my only two personal experiences with a cell in an emergency seem pretty ‘meh’ after that. :wink:

One fine afternoon after karate class, I discovered I’d locked my keys in my car. Not a big deal, as I was near downtown and could probably have found a useable phone in under half an hour (pay phones hardly ever work in my town), but it was nice to be able to direct my mother with my spare set of keys from my own phone instead of the sub shop’s. Not to mention it was getting dark, and the part of town was not the safest, and I was a single woman all alone (with, admittedly, some karate training :stuck_out_tongue: )

Better was the day we were driving out of Waxahatchie, TX. We were about ten miles out of town when we busted a tire…and none of us even remotely knew the area. In Texas, rural is RURAL – there ain’t nothin’ for miles, and it was getting close to nine or ten at night. We were dirty and tired after a long and rainy day at Scarborough Faire, and it was just getting ready to rain again. Luckily I had my cellular phone – we couldn’t have gotten out of there without a tow truck, and even with the cell phone we were out there for a few hours.

Could someone have walked ten miles into town and found a phone? Possibly, but in a town like Waxahatchie, all the stores close at six and all the gas stations at ten, and there was no way we could get someone on foot into town in under an hour. Without cell phones, someone might have driven by, but what then? They couldn’t get us much help. The major problem was that the tire iron we had couldn’t cope with the locking nut on the tire, and the car’s owner had lost the little key-thing that unlockds them. We were stuck until we had a tow-truck. AND it was Sunday night and we all needed to be at work Monday morning.

It’s a convenience. Just like cars with an automatic transmission are a convenience rather than a necessity. Ditto remote controls and cable modems and canned sodas and presliced bread.

46

From reading the OP’s responses to other’s emergencies, I would assume that nothing I have qualifies.

However, what about the girl whose car was dragged by a train?

http://www.beloitdailynews.com/399/trai31.htm

47

When walking down the street one day during the early morning rush hour on a main street leading to the highway that gets people to NYC, I saw a guy across the street start lurching, and then he ends up falling on the street and have convulsions. I immediately went out into the street right in front of him and directing traffic around him. I noticed a car on the other side pulled over immediately, and the driver took out a cell phone and called (I assumed) 911.

We were both in peril of being hit by a car, and the guy obviously needed immediate medical attention. The Police & Ambulance came about two minutes later.

48

That’s a totally crazy story, but the cell phone didn’t really help her at all, did it?

49

Sorry if someone has already pointed this out, but isn’t part of the problem here that it’s impossible to know what would have happened if a cell phone hadn’t been used?

From Trunk’s attitude, I think he would consider being stranded on the highway with an empty gas tank a definite non-emergency. What if I’m abducted and killed while I’m waiting for the road ranger to come by? Granted, I could still be abducted while waiting for the very good friend who is bringing me gas (and who I called on my cell phone) but maybe I could dial 911 as I’m being abducted; therefore saving myself from being murdered.

All that aside, I’m still not sure I get why or what Trunk is arguing here.

50

That’s because I’m not arguing.

I was just asking for anecdotes that fit a certain criteria. People gave me anecdotes that didn’t fit that criteria. When I pointed that out, I was told I was arguing. Then, we started arguing over whether I was arguing or not (that was actually arguing). Then, I was called names.

See, there’s all this contention on the SDMB the last couple of days over cell phones.

So, when I asked “when did a cell phone help in an emergency” everyone thought I wrote, “justify your ownership of a cell phone because obviously the emergency excuse is invalid,” which I never said at all. I said that was true of some of the stories (like the woman whose car was dragged down the tracks and just made calls but was eventually saved by being rammed into a pole), but I never said it was true in general.

51

I was on my way home yesterday and got a call to pick up milk. That’s emergency enough for me and it made a difference- I didn’t have to go back out after I got home.

Sorry, my cell phone comes in very handy and I wouldn’t get rid of it for any reason whatsoever. As a matter of fact, I got rid of my home phone since I no longer needed it.

52

Ok here are a few instances that I have been involved in:
[ul]
[li]Yeah I used it when I ran out of gas once. Now what seperates this from the run of the mill runout of gas story is that it was night, it was raining and there was NO shoulder on this part of I 5 in LA. I was stopped in the slow traffic lane. Having seen people in LA hit stopped cars before I thought that this qualifies.[/li][li]Debris on Freeway, with people panic stopping and swerving to aviod.[/li][li]A dog stranded on the center divider with traffic whizzing by both sides within about 3 feet going 70. If that dog had tried to make a break for it, I would bet money that somebody would have hit the brakes or swerved and things would have gotten ugly.[/li][li]Report drunk drivers[/li][/ul]

One of my best friends was driving I5 from LA to SF and was flagged down by a stopped car. The husband was having a heart attack, the wifes cell had no service. My buddies handheld cell had no service, but the incar emergency phone (like OnStar) got a connection and because of the intergrated GPS system an accurate location was plotted. An ambulance was dispatched. The husband lived. BTW the nearest phone was 16 miles further up the road. Would he have made it if my buddy had to drive the 16 miles? Don’t know, but since it is impossible to prove a negative…

53

The people in Washington DC whose lives were saved on 9/11 because the passengers on Flight 93 had people who called their cell phones and let them know what was going on with the hijacked planes so they took over the plane and crashed it into the ground instead of letting the hijackers crash it into a building should be kiss-my-ass grateful that those passengers had cell phones.

54

i already mentioned that. it’s the quintessential example.

55

Before our family had a cellphone, we were out on vacation in the Grand Canyon and stopped to look at a view over a cliff. My parents locked the keys in the car. It was snowing and absolutely freezing. We got very lucky in that a truck drove by and was able to take my mother to a ranger station, but that was the only vehicle we saw go by during the long period of time we were out there before a lock smith came. It got the point where we huddled in the port-o-potties in an unsuccessful attempt to warm up. Although it all worked out, if that one truck hadn’t come by (and that was purely luck), we could have had a major problem on our hands. A cellphone would have really come in handy.

Don’t they have pay by the call cell phones?

56

Well, it’s not about me personally, but how about this story? Hard to see how a land-line phone would have helped here. (This is only one of several similar stories in the news in recent years.)

As for personal stories…
I once was driving home and saw an elderly woman fall and start having a seizure. Her companion was blind (!) and unable to be of much assistance besides hand-holding, so I pulled over and called 911 and got an ambulance there in short order. Don’t know how much longer it would have taken to run to the nearest building, convince them to let me use their phone, make the call and get back to the scene, but I was glad not to have to find out it would have made the difference.
And yes, I’m in the business, and no, no-one I’ve ever dealt with and nothing I’ve ever read has referred to it as a “cel” phone. It’s “cell” or “mobile”. (Isn’t a “cel” something to do with old-time animation?)

57

That’s a crazy story, wireless.

All I know is I’ve seen “cel phone” and was using it as I’d seen it. it’s obviously wrong even though some in the business seem to use it – just google it.

And yes, a ‘cel’ is one particular piece of an animation sequence, if I’m not mistaken. It shows up in crossword puzzles – that’s probably why it seems normal to me.

58

An example from my hometown: 2 guys broke into one of the million dollar houses on the hill, shot the occupants and started loading stuff into their van. Someone notices them as they take off and follows them while talking to the police on their cell phone. Because the cops were getting excellent directions from the guy, they caught the guys. More importantly, the woman’s life was saved (the man died).

There was a story about the victim of a car jacking who reached into her purse and pushed the “Operator,” then started a running dialog with the car jacker that the police could hear on the phone, giving him directions like “Please drop me off at the store on Broadway on Main.” The police identified the car from her rambling and arrested the guy.

59

Aaron once came down with bronchitis and a 103 fever. Had I not been reachable, he could’ve died while the hospital went through channels to get permission from a judge to treat him. Instead, I was reachable and in contact while I was en route to the hospital.

Robin

60

Just in the past year, I can think of several occasions where my cell phone has been used in (my definition of) an emergancey (but probably not yours)

Situation #1, one my way to Virginia from Nebraska I was driving through St. Louis during the wee hours of the morning and inadvertantly became involved in a stolen car chanse (there were three cars on the raod, the stolen car, the owner of the stolen car in a friends car, and me, and the owner of the car pulled up and got my attention and I rolled down my window and agreed to call 911 for him.) The man who had stolen the car had a gun and was threatening to use it. I was able to call 911, give out exit numbers as we passed them as well as the stolen cars license plate, and the car that involved me in the chase. I dont know how it ended up as the stolen car got off the interstate and the other followed… and I really didnt feel like being anymore involved than I needed to, leaving the 911 operator with the exit they got off on.

Situation #2, on the same road trip just a couple hours later, had a tire blow out. Not a life and death situation by any means, but I was now a 17 year old girl alone in the middle of the night on an empty-enough-to-be-creepy interstate with no idea where I was (in relation to a shop to buy a new tire, that is)… boy was I relived to be able to call roadside assistance and be rescued!!

Situation #3, While driving home from work one night after closing (around three AM) it was pouring with rain and down one of the curvey dark back roads my car hydroplaned, and hit a fence. I wasnt hurt but I couldnt leave the scene until it was reported because property had been damaged, and my car was now stuck in the ditch anyway, so I used my cell phone to call the police, my mom, and a wrecker to come two me out! Without my cell phone I would have been wandering flooded roads and trekking down lond dark private driveways to wake up some stranger and ask for their help, or sitting on the side of a road for several hours until someone happened to drive down it, and hopefully care enough to stop.

Situation #4, went out with friends to a concert and the DD got drunk and insisted on driving anyway, so I was left stranded without a ride (I refused to go) along with another friend. The venue had already shut its doors and we were now on the streets of a very shady part of D.C. alone at about 2:30 AM. Was able to call a ride and get home safely.
No, none of these situations where directly life and death, but what if I had felt forced to get in a car with a Drunk driver because I didn’t have anyway of contacting someone to come get me? Or any of the other situations had turned out worse then they did, IMO, the cost of a cell phone is well worth having the security that when life throws its little bumps into the road I will have one more tool to use in aiding me to deal with it efficiantly.

-j (first post ever!)