He's out of minutes, so he's calling 911 because it's free. Is there some new mandate that requires cell phone users to use their phone or lose it? Is he having a good conversation with the 911 operators?

wtf?! oh, i see.........florida.

hello? 911? would you please call dominos for me? i want a large pepperoni pizza and my address is....

Oh, it's true. People will call and ask ME to connect them to their friends or family as 911 is the only call they can make.

Nuh uh. Not this dispatcher.

Wow--learn a new thing every day. It never would have occurred to me to call 911 in anything other than an emergency...I must lack imagination.

omg! i was kidding.....they REALLY do that?! how dumb can people be? much like maven i never thought of calling 911 for anything other than an emergency.

Ridiculous reasons people call 911 (and a few pet peeves..the list continues to grow....)

- my electric is out (when mine is out, I call the electric company.)

-wanted to see if my phone works

-my phone told me to call, I see SOS on there.
(sideline to that , people will ask me to take that off their phone or how to program it back to make regular calls. Er, call your cell company)

-wanted to program this in SPEED DIAL on my phone (is it that hard to dial!??!?!)

-this isnt an emergency. (then when the police get the call and yell at the person for calling for something so stupid, they say, "WELL I TOLD her it wasnt a REAL emergency" Blame me. pffft. oh yeah, sorry, it was the fake kind.


-my kid is missing. But saying in a tone like you didnt get the morning newspaper. Well, I take that back, some people get mad when they dont get their paper, but when you have a 3 yr old riding a bike on the sidewalk and then they are gone, I expect people to be a bit more frantic.

-I am calling for my friend/daughter/insert human here......who lives in TOPEKA kansas. Calling 911 doesnt get you the cops out there, I gotta do the same thing YOU gotta do, CALL information, get the number and ring them. People actually get mad at me cause it takes so long...esp when I gotta google a city to find an area code to the city cause alot of times I get that they are in anytown usa but NO address, no area code, no nothin.

-People who let their kids play with old cell phones. Still works folks. And we cant TRACE cells, so guess what? kids call and call and they call me names, and try to generate fake emergencies and we still have real calls to take. Sometimes we get em to stop when we tell em the police are on the way.....(I imagine those kids in the fetal position jumping at every car that goes by or slows down and their moms wondering why they are so jumpy...it warms my heart), or the battery dies, or their parents actually get on the phone and we can end it. Actually, we had one little kid freaked out so bad last week, my coworker told him the po po was coming (he said police) and to stay RIGHT where he was and he was like "NO NO NO!! !DONT COME NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!" and mom finally took attention and grabbed the phone. Then of course she didnt think it actually worked anymore.....argh. But it was funny that the kid got so freaked. Cause we were pissed and we were busy and they called for a good 30 min making our lives miserable.....

-people who dont know where they are on a cell. Pay attention to your surroundings. It makes it easier for us to find you. Northbound, eastbound, I may as well ask some people to solve E=mc2.


-flip side to that...people who "KNOW" where they are.....They are certain that they need x department, when in fact, they do not...I know the little idiosyncracies of the county, buddy. Then they get mad when I connect them and even madder when they find out I was right.

-people who call from a neighbors phone. I get THEIR address. They may NEED police at 123 street, but they are calling from 124 street. And they just dont GET It that EVEN if the cordless reaches to their address, it STILL comes up as their neighbors address on the phone.

-you called me. I didnt call 911. Hmmmm, I have your address, your name and it rang INTO me here at the comm center, but I called YOU? Did YOU hear YOUR phone ring, buddy? No, you heard me going ..."911 HELLOOOOOOOOOOO"

-nursing home calls. Nurses will be laughing on the phone during the call.

1. Its recorded honey

2. act professional.


Age?I get "oooooooooooooh, ahahhahaha, I dont know, she was born in 1913." geee, I guess I will do the math.

Yet, when ems asks if the patient is alert and oriented, they dont even answer THOSE questions correctly half the time.....I have gotten. "yep, they are walking around" !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! what does THAT have to do with alert and oriented?

But then, I have taken calls from nursing homes in the area where I have had to assist with cpr over the phone or they wanted me to stay on the line till the ambulance got there. I have seen possible hip fractures who were lifted up and put back to bed (cringe). Nothing suprises me there.

Wow...

scratch that off my list of future jobs

Thanks for the entertainment. I can only imagine how maddening that must be.
I thought about doing that for a living but didn't think I could handle people freaking out, crying and yelling at me all day long.
How do you handle it and how bad is it actually?

Hehheh, yes, an impressive list of idiotic calls, it looks like the source material for a nice joke book.

I'm one of those people. I haven't had to call 911 about a missing kid, but about other emergencies, and my son has been hunted down by security a few times.

I tend to be EXTREMELY calm during emergency situations. I do what needs to be done, and I keep control of my emotions until the worst is over. Sure it comes across as uncaring, or heartless, to some people, and I've been yelled at/lectured by others because I seem nonchalant about the whole ordeal, but what's the use in freaking out if being calm will help things get done more smoothly?

I work nite shift. That is a totally different breed of caller. The kind that graces the show Cops, to give you some idea. But we all know that the fun ones come out at nite.

That being said, it is indeed stressful. Yes, I get called every name in the book, am told to "HURRY up and get the (&#$@#$! (insert service here) NOW, or DONT ask me all these freaking questions just get here" type of calls and it's hard. I HAVE to know what is going on, to protect those who do go out there. Plus, I really am trying to help. I don't appreciate being yelled at. I realize that people in stressful situations are not in their right mind so to speak, but at times it just boggles my mind what goes thru my headset.

For 300,000 people in our county, we have TWO dispatchers on night shift. We get every call that rings in our county, plus some from Canada when the weather is right and other counties when our cell towers are full and calls bounce off ones that can be reached. I am the one that connects them to each appropriate department.

I don't get a 15 min break, nor a lunch hour. If I have to go to the bathroom, I have to hurry, my partner can get slammed with calls while I am gone. (we are union too, can you believe it?) If someone calls off, I can be stuck sitting here for 16 hrs or more. I am in no way b***hing, just saying, there is more stress that the callers themselves.

Are most emergencies? no. We get calls for paper cuts, because they don't have a ride to the hospital and 3 wk old toothaches. Medical advice. Someone called me a name. Someone who has a warrant is at such and such address, etc. Is officer so and so working tonight? what time re the fireworks for.....Did you get any accidents at such and such street.... 10% are TRUE emergencies.

THE calls that will make me want to cry are the people that find their loved ones have committed suicides. Those people beat themselves up over not seeing signs they think they shoulda seen, or noises in the nite they never got up to check. My God, the sounds and cries those people make haunt me. And all I can do is sit there and listen and be with them and bear silent witness to their pain until someone comes.

I don't know if it will mean anything...But I truly appreciate every single person willing to do the job. No public service position is all tea cakes and sherry, but jobs where your 'customer' is guaranteed to be upset are even more thankless. But--you save lives.

Hugs and a big thumbs up to you!

aww thanks. That kind of kudos is enough to keep me going for a while.

((((((((hugs))))))))