Have You Ever Rung 911/111/999 etc.

[Zardnaar]

As the title says. I have rung it once and gone to ring it twice. Second time I didn't due to other people already doing it.

First time aged 17 maybe 18 1996. Woken up late at night by mother heard a loud banging on the door 2am or so.

I can see a shadow through the wavey/rippled glass but low down. I open the door against mothers advice and a fella is slumped over on the porch covered in blood and head wounds. I can hear yelling up the road.

Off to the phone dial 111. Ask for ambulance and police. Cops turn up fairly quick can't do much about the guy who is semi conscious. He's not moving anyway. Sacrifice a tea towel and he's holding it somewhat incoherently against his head.

Ambulance turns up and they get another one. Recognized the one of the paramedics as sisters best friend ex husband. The yelling was the guys girlfriend screaming out for him. She's been assaulted as well covered in blood similar wounds.

Cops take our statements not a lot I can say explain situation best I can. Explained to Cops I figured Ambulance was the urgent thing and Cops probably needed as well.

Anyway turns out the couple had been to late night gas station, bought the last pie in the warmer and triggered someone who followed them up the hill, stole a rake handle and beat them around the head with it. Step brother knew the guy they got brain damage and never fully recovered.

2nd time never directly saw what happened but heard a thump near intersection looked up and saw a shape go under a van. Old lady walked out in front of it. Rushed over wasn't the first to get there and put phone away as someone was already on it.

She died later in hospital. Kinda knew she was dead already going by what I saw. Didn't have much to report don't think the driver was charged, green light wasn't speeding old lady was oblivious.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Not 911, as it wasn't an actual emergency (my dad was dealt with by the paramedics and my grandmother was already dead, so there wasn't anything else they could do other than send cops and a coroner).

 

[AmazonQueen]

Once.
When I was a student myself and 2 friends came across a scared woman who had been beaten up by her boyfriend. I went to a phone box and called the police whilst my friends stayed with the girl.

 

[Narz]

Yeah my gf has a seizure while pregnant pretty scary.

My buddy texted 911 when at a concert in Colorado, this girl we were w was too drunk and high and passing out in my lap. At the ER they said it happened all the time, tourists not being able to handle the edibles and elevation. I didn't even know you could text 911.

Can't recall any other times off top of my head.

 

[PhroX]

Called an ambulance once. Was walking to work when a I saw a cyclist hit a pothole and go flying over his handlebars. Me and a couple of other bystanders went to help the guy, who was in a pretty rough state - barely conscious and with a whole bunch of cuts and scrapes. The other two people focused on caring for him while I called the ambulance. Waited there for the 10 minutes it took for them to arrive, then left it to the professionals and went on with my day.

 

[Gorbles]

This year, my daughter had an allergic reaction to <something>. Never found out what, thankfully hasn't happened since.

Been around them in the past, had a friend who needed urgent attention r.e. insulin more than once. Think I stayed with the friend while others called the ambulance.

Not sure I've had to call one myself before now.

 

[Smellincoffee]

I work in an intercity library, so I call them once a month -- usually about fights, aggressive mentally ill people, etc, but on ocassion for medical problems. I've seen people pass out directly in front of me, that kind of thing. Twice I've witnessed erratic driving on the road (as in, driving in the opposing lane, weaving to drive off the road, etc), and once saw a car miss a turn at speed, then flip over repeatedly in a ditch. I stopped to check on them and called for emergency services.

 

[Kaitzilla]

I have been very fortunate so far.

Both 911 calls were pocket dials from a badly designed smartphone.

 

[Plains-Cow]

I had to for other people.

 

[Samson]

I once called for a car burning on the side of the road, but they already knew.

 

[AmazonQueen]

I once called for a car burning on the side of the road, but they already knew.

That reminds me. I once called for the Fire Brigade when someone let off a firework setting fire to a truck on the road outside my flat in London.

 

[tjs282]

Twenty(ish!) years back, I was the evening-shift assistant-manager/ lifeguard at a private-school pool. One night, a youngish guy came down from the spectator's gallery and then suffered a full-on collapse + seizure in the entrance lobby. He wasn't wearing a MedicAlert bracelet, and no-one in the building knew who he was. 'Luckily' the school swim-club had just finished, so (being the official first-aider on site) I stayed with him, while one of the teachers ushered the girls out of the building, and the other called 999 from the landline in the pool office. The ambulance arrived pretty quickly -- maybe as little as 5 minutes later (the school was/is close to the M3 motorway, and IIRC there was an ambulance- station near one of the junctions). Always assumed my patient was epileptic, wrote up an incident report, but was never contacted about it again (a couple of months later, I left that job to go backpacking).

Somewhat more recently (a couple of years ago), I was cycling to work when I found a cow loose on a backroad. The pasture gate was broken and had only been secured with a coil or two of fencing-wire, and she'd managed to push it open. Shoo'ed her back into the field but couldn't guarantee she'd stay there, so I called 112 for the police -- and got told off (in German), because apparently I should have called 110 instead...

 

[Birdjaguar]

We had an electrical fire in our wall last fall and called 911. Fire Dept. showed up quickly. No serious damage. My tax dollars at work.

 

[GenMarshall]

I have been very fortunate so far.

Both 911 calls were pocket dials from a badly designed smartphone.

I can’t imagine how it would feel explaining to the operator that you accidentally butt dialed 911 .

 

[Arwon]

I've never had to call 000, the only emergencies I've been close to have required me to drive someone to the emergency room, rather than call an ambo or other emergency services.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

I can’t imagine how it would feel explaining to the operator that you accidentally butt dialed 911 .

They probably hear that a lot. Of course it would help if people would stop carrying their phones in a back pocket.

ambo

Whut?

 

[Zardnaar]

They probably hear that a lot. Of course it would help if people would stop carrying their phones in a back pocket.



Whut?

Aussie for ambulance. Our siblings have their own lingo.

 

[Arwon]

Ambo = paramedic, usually. Can mean the vehicle but most often it's the person.

 

[Zardnaar]

Ambo = paramedic, usually. Can mean the vehicle but most often it's the person.

Ah bit behind in my Aussieisms. Gamestore here has an Aussie slang orientated card fame.

 

[Bamspeedy]

A few times over the last couple decades. Most serious case was a girlfriend at the time having a seizure. Operator asked if I tried turning her on her side, which I then did and that snapped her out of it. While she is coming out of her daze on the couch I explained to her what happened and when she found out I had called 911, she freaked, because she had a warrant out for her arrest (from previous unrelated things). Runs out the door....right into the arms of a cop. On the one hand she hated me for ending up back in jail, on the other hand the jail guards were telling her I saved her life.

Other times I called 911 were nothing like the above.
1. Driving-never someone else's accident, only my own (wintery conditions, just me going off the road or hitting a deer), non-emergency number just gets defaulted to 911, don't know if that's all the time or just during evening/night, so I immediately start off with "this isn't really an emergency, but....".

2. Saw smoke coming from the woods. Was worried it was the start of a forest fire, but it was just a controlled burn. There was a sign posted about the burn, but considering I was several hundred meters away I couldn't see it of course.

3. Busted window of my house. Window on basement door, 1000 cracks on it, but still, somehow intact (wasn't broke to gain access to inside the house- so no burglary. No glass on ground, but window obviously needed to be replaced). Cop said it looked pretty intentional (vandalism). Since it was the basement door, don't see it all the time so don't know how long it had been like that (if it happened while we were away for a couple hours in the last 24 hours, or if our kids did it by accident and didn't want to admit it...). Thinking about it later, I think I know when it happened, but can't be 100% sure.
Thinking about it later....I remembered something I did (but I didn't break the window unless there was some serious breaking of the laws of physics!). There was a small rock in my driveway, so I picked it up and throw it towards the ditch that already has tons of rocks because it's an area that gets all the runoff water from whenever it rains. A few seconds later (can't recall exactly how many seconds later it was-whether it was 3 or 5 or 10+) I thought I heard something like glass breaking but it didn't seem too close to me/from my house but that could be because my hearing isn't great. It could not have been my rock unless the rock took a boomerang-like flight pattern.... it's just not possible. Ricochet of the rock coming back after hitting a rock in the ditch? Nah, not unless my rock bounced back like 50 feet, which wouldn't happen even if I had hit a trampoline positioned exactly right trying to do that. Kids were playing in backyard at the time (I could see enough of back yard to know my rock wasn't going to hit them). I think it was one of them. They said they knew nothing of what happened to the window, didn't hear or see anything.

I can’t imagine how it would feel explaining to the operator that you accidentally butt dialed 911 .

It happens so often, there are actually ad campaigns telling people to don't just hang up when you realize you accidently called them. Need to let them know it was a mistake so they don't send people to that area looking to see if anyone is in trouble.

Both 911 calls were pocket dials from a badly designed smartphone.

Just a simple button that is easily pressed when the screen lock is on? I get they want to make it easy to call for emergency if you have someone's phone but don't know the password, but should require a little more button pressing/swiping than just one press. Stepdaughter when she first got her phone she pocket dialed twice, once at home, the other when she was at school (cops came to her house that time, because they knew the number....good luck finding which kid in school it was if they didn't know the number). Good thing for her it never happened a third time, otherwise that would have been Strike 3 for her and we take her phone away (easier solution is just not use the stupid lock screen).