TRIGGER WARNING: I’m not asking if you HAVE, because sometimes kids make mistakes or young adults pull pranks. I’m asking if you have had to, or if you felt compelled to by a real emergency situation. If so, what was that situation? If you have experienced an emergency but DID NOT call an emergency response number, why not?
TRIGGER WARNING: Have you ever had to call an emergency number, like 911?
First time I ever called 9-11, was my boss having heart palpitations. Not too long after that, an old lady at my salon, just slumped over and became unresponsive in the salon chair. At my next job, my co-workers abusive boyfriend tried to kill her at work, and later that year (the day I quit that awful place) we were held up at gunpoint in a robbery.
The following all happened at my next job in management:
Employee seizure
Baby seizure
5 children with seizures
Homeless guy taking dump in visitor parking lot
Man bringing gun into the building
Woman who tripped, fell, split open her surgery scar, blood everywhere
Early morning 2 alarm fire in the employee parking lot (with all our cars in it)
Toddler locked in hot car (funny enough, my high school friend, an EMT happened to answer this call)
Girl jumped down from structure hitting a nearby fixture, split her forehead open
Child missing (turns out she snuck behind a wall closed to the public and fell asleep)
Luckily this job was located a block from the nearest hospital and only a five minute drive from the literal medical center and nearest fire station. I mainly had to call 911, because manager duties and so I could act as witness for the company in any insurance cases. I was quite literally on a first name basis with some of the EMT's. I remember dealing with one kid where the mom asked me if I had medical training because I'd become so proficient at dealing with emergency situations. Nothing surprised me anymore outside of the fire.
There was an abandoned van down the road from my house for a few nights. One night at 4am, I was woken up by a loud noise.
Went outside to check and the van was on fire. Entirely in flames.
I was in high school and lived with my parents, so I woke them up and told them what was going on, then called 911.
They asked for the location, if there was anyone in the car (I hadn't seen anyone), and if there was imminent danger (it was next to trees so I wanted to make sure they got it before it lit up the trees).
That was it. Nothing more than that. Waited outside with my neighbours watching the fire until the fire truck came and we watched it get put out. Then went back to sleep, lol.
You could sleep after that? Many years ago, the house two doors down from mine burned. I watched the firefighters do their thing and even asked if there was anything i could do to help. But when the fire was out and all but the turnover crew had left, i was way too jacked with adrenaline and sweeping thoughts and feelings about the possibility of losing a home, a family member or pet, or my own life to sleep. I was glad it was a weekend, or i’d have been useless at work the next day.
Yeah, only for a few hours. There's no reason for me to worry. I was worried the forest would catch fire - when it was put out, I didn't have much to worry about any more.
Didn't really feel a need to worry. If my house ever caught fire, I had massive windows above the garage and some parts of the lawn - I could easily hop out and escape.
As far as I can remember, I've only called 911 once. A woman was apparently chasing her boyfriend, and was driving about 90 MPH down a 25 MPH street, and couldn't negotiate the curve fully, and drove into the oncoming lane. That car thankfully avoided her (it would have been a head-on collision otherwise), but her last-minute swerve sent her into the city park that's across the street. Luckily this happened about an hour before the kids would be showing up at soccer practice and the fields would have been full, but she took out the fence and drove into a thick/heavy metal BBQ grill (on a cemented-in post) that her car sent flying about 150 feet - which also could have killed someone. She was not badly injured, but was bloody from her head hitting the windshield, and she was subsequently arrested and taken to the hospital in cuffs.
I had just parked, and had driven the same place where she almost hit the on-coming car (which could have been me moments earlier), so I saw the near-miss and the collision with the fence and BBQ grill.
I've called the non-emergency number several times to report issues, but only that one 911 call.
Shamefully, i don’t even know the local non-emergency line. I think a lot of people are that way. Which is unfortunate because i’ve read that 911 dispatch times can be greatly reduced if they didn’t have to transfer non-emergency calls to another operator. In my defense, I JUST put ICE contacts and my personal medical information on my new phone a couple months ago. That’s the first time i’ve ever done that. I don’t even know my own blood type. I’m NOT prepared for these kinds of things. Kudos to you!
I have, in my phone, the non-emergency numbers for my city's police, the two cities on each side of mine, the CHP (California Highway Patrol - more-or-less our state police, but who focus mostly on freeway enforcement and accident response), and BART police. BART is the Bay Area Rapid Transit - the commuter train system in the Bay Area. I've had to use the BART number at least 4 times. Calling 911 would require a call transfer to the BART police dispatcher, so it's much better to call direct.
by the way, it would take you about 2 minutes to look up your local non-emergency numbers, and a few more minutes to put those numbers into your contact list, and assuming you are using cloud sync for your contacts (as I've done since 2008), you'll never have to worry about it again - those numbers will transfer over automatically as you update your phone.
You can also get a blood-typing kit from Amazon for about $20. Getting prepared really isn't difficult, time-consuming, or especially expensive, but it can be really valuable if you find yourself in an unexpected or unfortunate situation.
I've had to do it when I found my father unresponsive on the floor. It's something that nobody wants to do, but there is a pretty good chance they will have to at least once in their life. I was a nervous wreck and trying hard to be calm. I wasn't in a panic, but I wasn't calm either. It's not fun.
I had to call the coastguard to help an idiot who got cut off by the tides. Typical tourist who thought the laws of nature didn't apply to him, found himself trapped then tried to scale a cliff before realising he couldn't.
Where i am from even locals get caught off guard by undertow and riptides. Albeit, many are young and typically foolhardy, and others are under the influence of drugs and/or alcohol; sometimes both.
•Witnessed several drunken vehicle accidents •Been hit by several bad drivers (all deemed their fault) •Several loose dog attacks •Wildfires starting •Late night random criminal activity (many) One I witness a man holding a knife to a woman's throat •Daytime random criminal activity (many) •Someone under the influence just walked into my home (my german shepherds removed them, but still called) •Had my vehicle broken into when went in a store to get pet food. •I also moved back home to look after elderly parents who had quite a few health emergencies through the years. •Had to call ambulances for my own health emergencies
Yeah because there was some guy hopped up on drugs hunched behind the trunk of my sisters boyfriends car watching my sister and her boyfriend talking in his car across the street and when they saw him he just took off running down the middle of the street like Usain Bolt.
So I armed myself then called the cops and waited outside for em and had em search the area and make sure the dude wasn’t still skulking around.
They weren't needed. At least I don't think so. The guy had a knife and my friend swept and slammed him and then we just walked away. I didn't stay around to check if he was injured, but he got up and said some shit so I assume he was alright
I have. Car accident with a fire and I called 911 and then tried to get people out of the car. Thank God the fire dept came quickly with their gear and took care of everyone. Minor injuries. Very frightening.
Ha, no. I was back driving the next week. The other driver ran a red light and caused me to T bone them. I broke my left leg because the impact slammed it up against the dash. The other driver had her kids in the car and she was turned around to look at them. I have no idea about their condition but I don’t think anyone was really hurt badly. They did take the children to the hospital to be checked out by a doctor. Where I live, we deal with our own insurance companies after they do the initial determination of who is at fault, so that’s why I don’t know anything further.
When my doctor said it was okay for me to drive again, I did. I used an insurance rental for a couple of weeks until I got the payout for my car, and then I got a new car. Having a knee height air cast sucked balls - it was hard for me to get around on my feet for awhile. I’m a teacher, so I took medical leave from work for the last 3 months, because my school didn’t have an elevator at the time and they couldn’t move my classroom to the first floor. I was able to get a disability parking placard which made running everyday errands a lot easier if I was alone.
I saw an old woman fall down at the beach so I called 911 to get an ambulance for her. She was bleeding pretty bad. My wife stayed with her and I stood out on the road to flag the bus down when it showed up.
I recently worked with a guy who lost most of his home and belongings to a house fire. Similarly, he, his wife and their dog got out okay, but had to watch their world burn because they were in a very rural area. Then again, they got to watch it being largely rebuilt too.
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