me: 911 what's your emergency?
caller: my son. he broke his hand.
me: he broke his hand?
caller: yes. his fingers. He was playing video games and he fell.
me: How old is he?
caller: 17.
me: Okay, I'm going to get some preliminary information and then I'm going to send you on to medical.
Question: how violent are video games when you can get broken fingers just playing them!!!
Thursday, December 24, 2009
Monday, December 21, 2009
A Dispatcher Walks into a Dumb Question...
Me: 911 what's your emergency?
caller: yeah, my wife needs a transport.
me: okay.
caller: we need an ambulance to take her to the hospital.
me: sure, what's your address?
[no answer]
me: sir, what's your address?
(wait for it...)
caller: It's just that she's feeling really weak and not getting around too good.
me: Oh, yeah. I understand. We can get some help out there. Where is she?
[no answer]
Me: hello?
(wait for it...)
caller: yeah?
(here it comes...)
me: What address is the ambulance going to?
caller: The hospital.
me: where are they picking your wife up?
[no answer]
me: sir?
caller: yes?}
me: WHAT's YOUR ADDRESS? (it gets all caps because I had to yell)
Finally he gives me an address and I can send him onto medical....
I knew he was going to say the hospital as soon as the words got passed my lips. oh well, he could only hear about half of what I said so I was glad to get that. live and learn.
caller: yeah, my wife needs a transport.
me: okay.
caller: we need an ambulance to take her to the hospital.
me: sure, what's your address?
[no answer]
me: sir, what's your address?
(wait for it...)
caller: It's just that she's feeling really weak and not getting around too good.
me: Oh, yeah. I understand. We can get some help out there. Where is she?
[no answer]
Me: hello?
(wait for it...)
caller: yeah?
(here it comes...)
me: What address is the ambulance going to?
caller: The hospital.
me: where are they picking your wife up?
[no answer]
me: sir?
caller: yes?}
me: WHAT's YOUR ADDRESS? (it gets all caps because I had to yell)
Finally he gives me an address and I can send him onto medical....
I knew he was going to say the hospital as soon as the words got passed my lips. oh well, he could only hear about half of what I said so I was glad to get that. live and learn.
Sunday, December 20, 2009
A Little Jealous
I'm a little bit jealous because I didn't actually take these calls, but I overheard the dispatcher that did, and she told me about the caller's end of the conversation later.
dispatch: Okay. Where are you? [Pause] 90th and Wads? Okay that's in Westminster, let me...What's that? 90th and Ave? They don't intersect. That sign means 90th Avenue. Let me get you to Westminster.
And yesterday...
Dispatch: I don't know sir. I wasn't shopping with you that day, So I have no idea what store you were at. All I'm saying is that there are no Walmarts in Arvada. You need to get your receipt or somehow figure out where you were when this happened so you can report it to the correct agency.
dispatch: Okay. Where are you? [Pause] 90th and Wads? Okay that's in Westminster, let me...What's that? 90th and Ave? They don't intersect. That sign means 90th Avenue. Let me get you to Westminster.
And yesterday...
Dispatch: I don't know sir. I wasn't shopping with you that day, So I have no idea what store you were at. All I'm saying is that there are no Walmarts in Arvada. You need to get your receipt or somehow figure out where you were when this happened so you can report it to the correct agency.
Monday, December 14, 2009
Reasons (stupid) People Call 911
The next time you see on the news that a 911 dispatcher has told someone to go eff themselves, you should understand why people call the police in the first place:
This morning, just over an hour ago, we had a mother call for an officer to come wake their kid up for school. Wow! This isn't the first time we've dealt with this family. They called for the same thing a couple weeks ago.
And just a couple days ago, they were arguing with their 12 yo bipolar son and he broke some stuff in the house. "He's 5'4" and 125 bls!" screamed the grandmother into my ear. "Do you know how much damage a kid that size can do?"
I'm thinking not much. But then again, I'm reacting from the point of view of someone who had great parents who taught me to respect them, and our house, when I was much much younger and as a result, didn't have to deal with a pre-teen that was "out of control."
Now, I know that people with bipolar disorder are prone to rage, and they can be difficult, but the parents do have to take some responsibility. At some point, they have to be the ones to make sure their kids with mental disorders are compliant with medications and don't have the opportunity to slip into the clycles of mania and depression, and all the rage that goes with it.
So we sent an officer. An officer that's responded to wake the kid up before which we saw as a precedent. We probably should have an intervention to tell the officer she's enabling this family. But what can you do? I guess we'll threaten to send her out to talk to kids who won't clean up their room or who don't eat all their vegetables.
I sent a private message to the officer that said we could ask the mother if she wanted us to stand by to make her kid eat breakfast as well, maybe dress him, wipe his ass when he poops, etc.
The worst part of this whole thing is that the mother and stepdad are bastards, and dote on the two kids they've had together while the 12yo from the previous marriage gets pushed aside. Even a normal teen would act out in this situation--let alone one with bipolar disorder. The stepdad has even been sighted for child abuse!
Unfortunately, when the mom called today, she did call on a non-emergency number so we couldn't even ask the officer to ticket her for misuse of 911. But one day...one day she'll slip up and call 911 for some nannying request like this and we'll have her right where we want her.
I only hope Social Services can get involved and save this kid from his horrible parents. In my best dreams, parents like this are sterilized so they can't turn anymore innocent kids into little delinquents with their crap.
But I digress.
When you hear on the news that a 911 dispatcher has been fired for telling a caller off, realize that most of the day, we get calls like this. Remember that 85% (this stat is an average from a number of publised reports by metro 911 centers about their calls just google 911 calls) of calls into 911--a number for life and death emergencies, are not emergencies at all (have no imminent threat of harm to a person or property let alone a threat that could cause loss of life or destruction of property).
We get calls looking for phone numbers for other police departments (presumably these callers can't read a phone book or the internet, or even use their own precious iPhones to look up the right number), people who lost their ticket and want to know what day they have to go to court, people who want to know the phone numbers for certain restaurants, people who want police to come and make McDonalds construct a better burger (one caller was actually recorded using the phrase, "I want you to enforce my Value Meal") and the like.
It's only three digits so that it can be dialed quickly during an emergency, no so it's easier to remember when you're too lazy to pick up a phone book.
This morning, just over an hour ago, we had a mother call for an officer to come wake their kid up for school. Wow! This isn't the first time we've dealt with this family. They called for the same thing a couple weeks ago.
And just a couple days ago, they were arguing with their 12 yo bipolar son and he broke some stuff in the house. "He's 5'4" and 125 bls!" screamed the grandmother into my ear. "Do you know how much damage a kid that size can do?"
I'm thinking not much. But then again, I'm reacting from the point of view of someone who had great parents who taught me to respect them, and our house, when I was much much younger and as a result, didn't have to deal with a pre-teen that was "out of control."
Now, I know that people with bipolar disorder are prone to rage, and they can be difficult, but the parents do have to take some responsibility. At some point, they have to be the ones to make sure their kids with mental disorders are compliant with medications and don't have the opportunity to slip into the clycles of mania and depression, and all the rage that goes with it.
So we sent an officer. An officer that's responded to wake the kid up before which we saw as a precedent. We probably should have an intervention to tell the officer she's enabling this family. But what can you do? I guess we'll threaten to send her out to talk to kids who won't clean up their room or who don't eat all their vegetables.
I sent a private message to the officer that said we could ask the mother if she wanted us to stand by to make her kid eat breakfast as well, maybe dress him, wipe his ass when he poops, etc.
The worst part of this whole thing is that the mother and stepdad are bastards, and dote on the two kids they've had together while the 12yo from the previous marriage gets pushed aside. Even a normal teen would act out in this situation--let alone one with bipolar disorder. The stepdad has even been sighted for child abuse!
Unfortunately, when the mom called today, she did call on a non-emergency number so we couldn't even ask the officer to ticket her for misuse of 911. But one day...one day she'll slip up and call 911 for some nannying request like this and we'll have her right where we want her.
I only hope Social Services can get involved and save this kid from his horrible parents. In my best dreams, parents like this are sterilized so they can't turn anymore innocent kids into little delinquents with their crap.
But I digress.
When you hear on the news that a 911 dispatcher has been fired for telling a caller off, realize that most of the day, we get calls like this. Remember that 85% (this stat is an average from a number of publised reports by metro 911 centers about their calls just google 911 calls) of calls into 911--a number for life and death emergencies, are not emergencies at all (have no imminent threat of harm to a person or property let alone a threat that could cause loss of life or destruction of property).
We get calls looking for phone numbers for other police departments (presumably these callers can't read a phone book or the internet, or even use their own precious iPhones to look up the right number), people who lost their ticket and want to know what day they have to go to court, people who want to know the phone numbers for certain restaurants, people who want police to come and make McDonalds construct a better burger (one caller was actually recorded using the phrase, "I want you to enforce my Value Meal") and the like.
It's only three digits so that it can be dialed quickly during an emergency, no so it's easier to remember when you're too lazy to pick up a phone book.
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
Romeo and Juliet
We had kind of a tough call last week, a double suicide, and my trainee did an outstanding job as she caught the first call. I did end up taking over, but whole story was extremely convoluded and just about everything about this call made it confusing.
First, we got the first call on a non-emergency line--not a call about "I found my __________ in her room with a gun on the floor." Not an, "I just heard a gun shot followed closely there after by another gun shot from my neighbors' house..."
Our first call was from a middle aged man who was not at the scene. He also might have been in a coma for all the urgency he let slip into his voice.
Long, winding story short, a middle aged woman who had been battling depression for years walked outside her house and shot herself. This is a bit unsual because most profiles of women who attempt suicide are for younger or older women (teens or elderly) and most do not use violent methods such as guns--they tend to favor pills or Carbon Monoxide etc. But apparently she meant it.
So her boyfriend comes home and finds her in the back yard. It was his gun. Distraught, he calls the woman's sister who lives half a state away in a little po-dunk town, on the eastern edge of BFE.
He tells her that her sister shot herself with his gun and that he was thinking about doing the same thing. He says all the cliche things about not having anything to live for, it all being his fault etc. The sister, in BFE, is a freaked out. She doesn't know how to talk to someone who is threatening suicide or talking about it.
It seems to me that she was acting under the widely held misconception that saying "suicide" or asking someone why they want to kill themselves could actually talk them into doing it. She didn't know that studies of suicides and attempts have shown that talking to someone about it, usually does more help than harm. The fact that the boyfriend called anyone shows that he was on the fence about it.
And believe me, there are enough 911 tapes out there that go like this:
dispatch: 911 what's your emergency?
caller: You'll find me at ____________ address."
dispatch: what's going on there sir.
[muffled pop noise followed by open line/dead air]
People who have their mind set on it don't talk about it, but they frequently want the police to have some idea because they hope the authorities will get to the body/clean up the mess before their loved-ones find them.
If you know someone who you think might be having suicidal thoughts, talk to them, talk to professionals about helping them, talk to anyone you can to try to intervene. I mean it. You really can help.
Unfortunately, the sister did not know this, and she thought not talking about suicide was the better course of action so she hung up on the boyfriend. The she asked her husband what he though they should do.
Not knowing the telephone number for the police in our city (as they lived so far away), they decided to call the husband's brother who did live in our city. He was the comatose call we got first.
My trainee got all the basics of the info from him and quickly too. She did very well. He was apparently on the cell phone with his sister in law half a state away, and on his home line with us. He was relaying info as best he could, but the circuitous route the info was taking (suicidal boyfriend to sister, to husband's brother to the call taker) was confusing. He hadn't had communication with anyone on scene, though he knew their address.
Getting better information was like pulling teeth because he was talking so slowly, and because he had ask the sister, listen to her, then relay the answer to us. Despite the delay in the third hand reporting, we got officers started pretty quickly.
I took up the call at about this point, because trying to figure out exactly who our caller was and how he knew something was going on at the house was getting confusing. I ended up hanging up with him and calling the sister in BFE directly to hear about the boyfriend's state of mind, and the actual words he was using on what turned out to be his last phone call, straight from her.
In the end, there wasn't anything officers could do. The couple was found laying next to each other in the side yard by the first officer to arrive. There were no calls from neighbors on either of the two gunshots, which both happened outside, and the call from the uninvolved brother in law was the only incoming call we had on the whole thing.
Sometimes it happens like that...some kid lights off a bottle rocket, and half a city block calls in about gun shots (some people even trying to guess at calibers etc) and when there is an actual gun shot (2 in this case) no one hears it.
First, we got the first call on a non-emergency line--not a call about "I found my __________ in her room with a gun on the floor." Not an, "I just heard a gun shot followed closely there after by another gun shot from my neighbors' house..."
Our first call was from a middle aged man who was not at the scene. He also might have been in a coma for all the urgency he let slip into his voice.
Long, winding story short, a middle aged woman who had been battling depression for years walked outside her house and shot herself. This is a bit unsual because most profiles of women who attempt suicide are for younger or older women (teens or elderly) and most do not use violent methods such as guns--they tend to favor pills or Carbon Monoxide etc. But apparently she meant it.
So her boyfriend comes home and finds her in the back yard. It was his gun. Distraught, he calls the woman's sister who lives half a state away in a little po-dunk town, on the eastern edge of BFE.
He tells her that her sister shot herself with his gun and that he was thinking about doing the same thing. He says all the cliche things about not having anything to live for, it all being his fault etc. The sister, in BFE, is a freaked out. She doesn't know how to talk to someone who is threatening suicide or talking about it.
It seems to me that she was acting under the widely held misconception that saying "suicide" or asking someone why they want to kill themselves could actually talk them into doing it. She didn't know that studies of suicides and attempts have shown that talking to someone about it, usually does more help than harm. The fact that the boyfriend called anyone shows that he was on the fence about it.
And believe me, there are enough 911 tapes out there that go like this:
dispatch: 911 what's your emergency?
caller: You'll find me at ____________ address."
dispatch: what's going on there sir.
[muffled pop noise followed by open line/dead air]
People who have their mind set on it don't talk about it, but they frequently want the police to have some idea because they hope the authorities will get to the body/clean up the mess before their loved-ones find them.
If you know someone who you think might be having suicidal thoughts, talk to them, talk to professionals about helping them, talk to anyone you can to try to intervene. I mean it. You really can help.
Unfortunately, the sister did not know this, and she thought not talking about suicide was the better course of action so she hung up on the boyfriend. The she asked her husband what he though they should do.
Not knowing the telephone number for the police in our city (as they lived so far away), they decided to call the husband's brother who did live in our city. He was the comatose call we got first.
My trainee got all the basics of the info from him and quickly too. She did very well. He was apparently on the cell phone with his sister in law half a state away, and on his home line with us. He was relaying info as best he could, but the circuitous route the info was taking (suicidal boyfriend to sister, to husband's brother to the call taker) was confusing. He hadn't had communication with anyone on scene, though he knew their address.
Getting better information was like pulling teeth because he was talking so slowly, and because he had ask the sister, listen to her, then relay the answer to us. Despite the delay in the third hand reporting, we got officers started pretty quickly.
I took up the call at about this point, because trying to figure out exactly who our caller was and how he knew something was going on at the house was getting confusing. I ended up hanging up with him and calling the sister in BFE directly to hear about the boyfriend's state of mind, and the actual words he was using on what turned out to be his last phone call, straight from her.
In the end, there wasn't anything officers could do. The couple was found laying next to each other in the side yard by the first officer to arrive. There were no calls from neighbors on either of the two gunshots, which both happened outside, and the call from the uninvolved brother in law was the only incoming call we had on the whole thing.
Sometimes it happens like that...some kid lights off a bottle rocket, and half a city block calls in about gun shots (some people even trying to guess at calibers etc) and when there is an actual gun shot (2 in this case) no one hears it.
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