Would You Have Called 911?

In My Humble Opinion
1

I just got back from the small neighborhood store near my home. When I parked, I saw am older (late 60s) man standing on the sidewalk beside the store. He was standing stock still and seemed to be staring at the sidewalk, in a daze with a blank expression on his face. He wasn’t moving or wavering back and forth at all, he wasn’t saying anything, he was like a statue.

I ran into the store, grabbed just a few things, chatted briefly with the owners and came back outside. The man was still standing there, same position, same expression.

I called out to the man “Sir, are you okay?” and he didn’t move or respond to me at all. It was frightening, frankly. So I came home (I forgot my cell phone, unfortunately, and was too stupid to think to go inside the store to use their phone) and called 911, and the operator was, well, I didn’t appreciate her tone.

Operator: “What’s the nature of the emergency?”
TeaElle: “There’s a man at the corner of Main Street and Fifth Avenue, next to the corner store, and he seems to be having some kind of problem.”
Operator: “What kind of problem?”
TeaElle: “He’s an older man, and he’s nonresponsive. He’s standing perfectly still, and has been for at least ten minutes, and he didn’t answer or even move when I spoke to him. He’s just standing there like a statue, staring at the sidewalk. I don’t know if he’s in a fugue or if he’s lost and confused or if he’s having some kind of stroke or episode like that, but there’s definitely something wrong.”
Operator: (Sarcastically) “There’s something wrong because he’s just standing still?”
TeaElle: “The way he’s standing. He’s in the middle of the sidewalk staring at the ground. The way he’s standing there is not normal, it’s not something that someone would do under normal circumstances.”
Operator: “So he’s being abnormal?”
TeaElle: “He’s distressed. He’s not acting the way people do when everything is all right. He’s an older man, and he’s all alone, and someone needs to check on him.”
Operator: “Because he’s not acting the way you think he should?”
TeaElle: “Because he’s not acting the way anyone should! I would’ve approached him but I know from experience that people with altered mental status can be difficult to manage physically, and I’m not trained to handle that, but police and paramedics are. That’s why I’m calling for police or paramedics to go and check to see what’s happening with the gentleman.”
Operator: (Dismissive) “Okay. Corner of Main and Fifth. I’ll dispatch someone.”

What do you think? Was I overreacting by calling? If I hadn’t called and I heard, the next time I ran into the store, that the man had died on the sidewalk outside or that he was confused and wandered into the street and was hit by a car, I would’ve been overwhelmed with grief.

Would you have called? Would you have described the situation differently? Maybe the 911 operator was just jaded or having a bad day, but I was left feeling like I wasting prescious resources by asking to have the man looked after. I’m at a loss.

2

I wouldn’t call 911. But I would call the fuzz.

3

IMHO, you did the right thing. I think you described his behavior well, too, and while there might be nothing they can do, I think having someone professional check him out is the right thing in this circumstance.

If you are up to it, you might want to consider making a complaint against the operator. The calls are recorded, so the supervisor can hear for herself.

4

I think you did the right thing. I’m sure all the “trust your gut” people who are currently in Inkleberry’s thread about her baby will be in to agree with us soon.

5

I agree. I would have called 411 to find out the non emergency police number, and explained the situation.

The man sounded like he needed some type of help, but it didn’t seem like a life or death thing.

I don’t think the OP did anything wrong, but from what I’ve heard, people call 911 for all kinds of things that aren’t “real” emergencies; such as a rape in progress, a fire, a hold up at the store you went into, etc. Maybe that’s why the operator seemed snarky.

6

I second/third/etc. the notion that you did the right thing by calling 911.

I have had nothing but bad experiences with 911 operators. Each time I have had to call they are either dumb as rocks or just assume everybody who calls is lying.

7

Personally, I would have called the non-emergency number. However, the bottom line is this: It’s best to over-react in these type of situations than under-react.

So I really don’t see the big deal with calling 911. FWIW, I’ve had, on at least one occasion I can remember, a snarky 911 operator. While I understand they often have a stressful job, they need to understand that not everyone in the world is as well versed in what does/does not constitue an emergency as they are, and suck it up.

8

IMO the operator you spoke to missed 3 vital questions.

  1. Is the old man of native American descent?

  2. Does his torso or face look like it’s been used to ignite matches?

  3. Does the store sell cigars?

9

around here they run ads all the time if we see folks like that, call 911. Usually they are lost Alzheimer’s patients.

10

You did the right thing.

My dad had Parkinson’s disease and would sometimes “freeze”. There was nothing that could be done about it except wait it out. One time he froze at the barber shop and the hair cutters were trying to force him to move. I had to get firm with them to leave him alone.

11

Whatever this is referencing, I don’t get it.

Any road, I would have called, and I would probably have gotten pissed off well before you did.

12

Fifty or more years ago, it was traditional for cigar stores to have a life-sized wooden Indian in front. No idea why.

13

He was questioning whether or not the subject may have been a cigar store indian, e.g. made of wood. See Kawliga.

14

My grandfather has epilepsy, and your description sounded exactly how my grandfather is when he has a seizure. Occassionally, he can respond, but only to say “I’m all right.” However, recently he had one so severe he was paralyzed (it was a partial stroke, as well), that my grandmother had to call my father, my aunt, and two of my cousins to get him out of the shower.

I think you did the right thing, and shame on that dispatcher!

15

Gah! I hate it when the dispatch folks are asses.

I live withing walking distance of a prison. NOT close walking distance, but if I started walking, I could get there in less than an hour.

One day, in my neighbourhood I saw a Very Big Man, in an orange jump suit, wearing a ninja mask, standing in the middle of the road interfereing with traffic. You know the big guy from The Green Mile? Picture him with a ninja mask, standing in traffic wearing an orange jumpsuit like the kind prisoners wear.

Oh, and he was pointing his finger like he had a gun. That’s right, his finger. He didn’t have a gun, he was doing the pointing things little kid’s do when they say “Stick 'em up!”. Anyhow… so this guy is standing int he middle of the street, cars have to swerve around him and he is stalking a convenience store. Yes, “stalking”. He was in a cat-lke posture, tip-toeing towards a convenience store.

Now, at the very least, this dude is high and is going to cause trouble. He already has come close to causing several car accidents. And it looks like he’s on his way to rob a convenience store with his finger.

So I call the police department (the non-emergency dispatch number) and we have the following discussion:

First I describe this weirdo who is about to hold up the convenience store with his finger. REALLY BIG dude (you could see his skin hue at his eyeholes, so I mentioned that) wearing a ninja mask and orange prison-like outfit inthe middle of the night.

Dispatch: “What does the man look like?”
Me: “Well, he’s wearing a ninja mask, I can’t describe his face.”
Dispatch: “But what does he look like? You can’t describe his face? "
Me: “No. He is wearing a ninja mask. It covers his entire head except his eyeholes. He’s a very large man in an orange prison jumpsuit.”
Dispatch: “So he’s a large black male (I had described his race), about 6’4” in an orange jumpsuit… You can’t describe his face?”
Me: “He is wearing a MASK. A black MASK that covers his whole head except for his eyes. Like a balaclava. He is wearing a ninja mask!”
Dispatch: “So… you can’t describe him?”
Me: “A really great, BIG guy in an orange prison jumpsuit, wearing a mask tha tcovers his head!!!”
Dispatch: “But what does he look like? I need to know what he looks like.”

The next day I went to a police station with a sketch I made. They were alarmed. “This guy was in your neighbourhood???”

Sometimes, I swear…

I know that 911 dispatch and the police dispatcher get a lot of lousy crap from hysterical people, panicky people, drunk people etc. But when someone is vey careful and provides the Who, What, Where, When and Why-this-is-urgent, it’s freaking annoying when the operator is a moron!

TeaElle, I think you did the right thing. I probably would have called the non-emergency number of the police. A non-responsive, elderly person could be “confused” or emotionally distressed.

Sometimes it helps to use or know jargon. Here they’ll say ting like “EDP” for emotionally distressed person, meaning someone who is potentially mentally ill may be in (or causing) a dangerous situation.

Note: My boss stumbled across a murder scene while walking his dog. He had a lot of difficulty getting the police to show up and they were completely uninterested until they saw the bloody handprints all over the walls. Seriously, they were annoyed to be on the call until they found the body. :mad:

16

In the town my in-laws live in, a man of (I believe) Korean ancestry grew upset, and stood in his driveway with a broomstick. Neighbors called the police, who decided the
Asian man was holding the stick like a martial artist. When he did not respond to them, and would not put down the stick, they shot him to death.

In San Francisco, a three-year-old Vietnamese boy was found outside by himself; neighbors called police, who entered his mother’s house. She was alarmed, and grabbed a large vegetable peeler called a dao bao. The police officer thought it was a meat cleaver and shot her to death.

There are justifications for the police actions in both of these cases; what I find myself asking is “who the hell called the police?” Who found their neighbors so dangerous that they had to call armed men to deal with them?

17

Speaking as a 911 dispatcher…whoever you talked to was an ass, Teaelle. So was the one Eats_Crayons talked to. I’ll admit, I have been known to get a little snippy at times (generally when I’m talking to someone whose only answer to my inquiry as to what’s going on is along the lines of, “Just fucking send them, it’s none of your goddamn business!”) but the OP’s operator was just being asinine. Find the office number and report it to the supervisor, or better yet send a letter, or write a letter to the editor of your local paper. It’s bad enough the general public perceives us as nothing more than brainless phone answerers who will be obsolete as soon as chimpanzees gain the power of speech, or smug button-pushing obstructionists whose main goal in life is to stand between the caller and the help he/she needs, without smackheads like that making us all look even worse.

18

Whoops, sorry about the swearing; I forgot I wasn’t in the Pit.

Insert asterisks where appropriate… :smack:

19

You did the right thing. He could have been in insulin shock or something like that. One of my aunts went into insulin shock at a store and either no one noticed or no one cared. She crashed her car into a tree and broke her nose, but luckily didn’t hit anyone else in the process. You erred on the side of caution.

20

Yes I would have called.

I know quite a few instances where elderly people were showing signs of dementia and would leave the house and roam around, some times standing in one corner for over half an hour before someone decides the guy is definitely in bad shape (times like those I love the “small town mindset”) but their relatives didn’t worry because “he always comes back”. In one case, the family realized things were NOT all right when they got a call from a train driver saying “ma’am? are you XYZ’s daughter? we’re at the train station in ABC, can you come pick him up?” ABC is 15 miles away from the guy’s town; he had started walking on the rails and the only reason the train hadn’t run him over is that they saw him from far enough in a long straight stretch.

Getting a call from someone who says “hi, your dad seems to be a bit lost, we found him, can you come pick him up?” is a lot better than getting one that says “your dad got ran over by a train,” methinks.