p.s. There was also the time when I was at a pizza place and someone who worked there had a seizure. I think one of her coworkers knew that she had a seizure disorder. We sat her down and called 911. Amazingly people had no idea what to do so they started offering to do random crap. Does she need a glass of water? Should we put something in her mouth so she doesn’t bite her tongue? All while she is actively seizing. I had to say no to all their crazy offers of help. I felt like I had been transported back to the 1950’s when no one knew what to do for someone having a seizure. (Btw, call 911, get them safely to the ground so they don’t fall, let them move and move things out of their way, DON’T stick anything in their mouth!) I held her hand as she started to wake up. She was confused and asking what happened. I asked her if she had had seizures before. Yes. I let her know that she had had another one. She understood. I told her, as EMS was coming in, that help was here and in a minute it was going to get very loud with lots of people talking and asking her questions. I also told her that EMS would help her. Such a vulnerable situation to be in if someone has a seizure and no one knows what to do. In that case, well intentioned people trying to do _something_ can potentially cause harm.

I called 911 once while living in an apartment building in Chicago. My windows were open one evening and I heard someone calling for help over and over. So I called 911, told them what I heard and my address and that’s all I could tell them. Apparently a few other people heard the calls for help and called too.

It turns out that a guy had got his head caught in the railing of his balcony, i.e. he had put his head through the railing and then couldn’t get it back out! I’m assuming alcohol was involved…..

Weirdly enough I feel like I have, but can’t for the life of me remember why.

I also have dreams where I call and can’t get through or something.

So maybe I just dreamed it? But I feel like I’ve actually called. Weird.

Reading these brought back a time I had forgotten. Seems impossible to forget but…

Scary: House alarm goes off at 2am after I hear distinct thud on downstairs door. Cops came, found nothing. Gave us a warning ticket for false alarm. WTF, cops?

The One I Forgot: My husband pulled his back and couldn’t move. I attempted to piggyback my 200 lb Marine down flight of stairs. He slide/falls on me and then we both get stuck. I had cell in pocket. EMTs had lots of jokes.

So some of these probably aren’t the best to read before bed!

I recently called 911 for the first time when I saw a car drive through our culdesac with no headlights. The guy stopped at my neighbors and proceeded to go through all the cars. He took his sweet time so the cops caught him. What freaked me out was having to ID him in front of my own house! I’m still mad the cops had me do that but they swear he was so high on meth he won’t remember. Wouldn’t the police report have the address though?

I’ve called a few times. Once when someone had a seizure at the restaurant my husband and I were at. Once when I saw some dudes congregating – I suspected – for a dogfight. Once for a girl who’d crashed her car on the freeway (she was drunk). I think there were a few more…

I’ve called once when there was someone walking up and down my (quiet, suburban) street screaming into a phone after midnight, and once (for the same person…) when there was a big fight next door. I’ve also called when I drove past a car broken down in the passing lane on the highway.

Weirdest was when I found a used needle outside (yay big city). After going to the trouble of finding the non-emergency police number to ask what I should do about it, I was told I should just call 911, and when I did, they treated this as routine and a reasonable reason to call. I thought 911 was for emergencies only…

I’ve called on the road for car accidents I witnessed twice, once for a man weaving and slumping over in his car on the interstate with a bottle in hand and recently when a drove by a young man assaulting a woman on my way to my son’s school. :( been fortunate never to call for the kids but my parents did for a choking incident. My son was fine by the time they came so he got to hang out in the fire truck.

I actually just had to call a couple days ago, when there was a big car crash right outside our house. We live on a country road, and the neighbor was parked out there installing a new mailbox. A very elderly lady came tearing down the road in a huge SUV and crashed right into the neighbor’s truck, pushed it 30 feet down the road before stopping, etc. Luckily, the neighbor wasn’t near the truck at the time, but the driver was totally non-responsive (in shock, I think), by the time I got out there. Calling 911 in our tiny town is not exactly efficient, either. First you get connected to dispatch, who has to figure out whether it’s the state police or the county sheriff covering your address that day. Then, you talk to the police and give them your info all over again, and then you get given BACK to dispatch who talks you through immediate assistance / gets more details / etc. It’s kind of a mess!

Unfortunately, yes. Our first son was born 4 weeks early and was under 5 lbs. He choked on formula around 5 a.m. at about 3 weeks old. The rest of the day he continued to become very lethargic and pale. My husband had to call 911 and they took him my ambulance to the hospital. He was there for a week. It was awful and terrifying. He’s a happy and healthy 5 y/o old now though!!

In February of this year I was at a shopping plaza. When I parked my car I noticed something moving in the car I had parked next to. Upon existing my car I realized there was a toddler (maybe 2 years old), in his car seat, windows cracked. The car was not running and it was 30 degrees outside. I took a deep breath and went in to do my business (which I now beat myself up for), and 25 minutes later the toddler was still in the care unattended. I called 911 and reported it and waited until the police arrived. When the officer walked up to the car the toddler reached out his little hand to the window. The officer said “It’s ok little Buddy, I’m gonna help you.” I literally broke down in tears. How on earth could somone do that?????? He was in that car unattended for at least 35 minutes that I was aware of, who knows how much longer!

Oh and once in college, in New Orleans…a guy was beating in a truck window in a parking lot with a PROPANE TANK. That just seemed like a bad, bad idea.

I’ve called 911 several times: mostly for fires and car accidents. I called for the latter last week actually.

I also called the fire department directly once for a smoke-filled apartment, but I’d already gone into it, removed the pan that had been left on the stove to the front lawn, and checked for the little old lady who lived there (she had gone out and left her lunch on the stove). Since there was no danger of actual flames or an unconscious victim at that point, I didn’t call 911. In hindsight I probably should have.

I’ve been very lucky though, that all my 911 calls have been for other people’s emergencies. The only one that was my own I was too busy dowsing flames as part of a bucket brigade from our kitchen sink (porch on fire), and someone else called.

I called 911 on my neighbors. I wasn’t working after my son was born and was able to watch all the neighborhood comings and goings. There was one guy who would park in our alley, cross our yard, to our neighbors, then head back to his car minutes later, on a regular basis. One time a lady followed him back to his car, obviously fighting with him, crying. She didn’t want him to leave and tried to wrap the seat belt around her arm so he couldn’t drive off. He was pretty upset with her too and I was scared he’d just drag her behind him. Eventually they just separated and each went their way (of course, long before any cop arrived) but it was very intense. I was shaking the whole time I was on the phone and for quite a while afterwards.

We were grocery shopping at the local Hy-Vee (Iowa) and we brought our stuff to the car, along with our toddler at the time. A young guy walked up to us, holding his chest, hand a bit bloody and asked if he could borrow our phone to call 911. My husband called 911, made the guy sit down with his head between his knees. He’d been stabbed in the parking lot by some not-so-great friend of his, high school or college age would be my guess. Cops came and ambulance, we told what we saw/knew and that’s it. My fear was just my little girl in the car and my husbands fear was that he’d touch the car with his bloody hands. He kept telling him to sit down, don’t touch the car :) He was fine, non-lethal stab wound.

i actually *answer* 911 on occasion…most of the time it is the wrong number! if anyone is wondering, it makes life easier on the dispatcher if you can tell them WHAT is happening and WHERE (although most of the time they already know where you are calling from, they may just want to confirm it). those are the two most critical pieces of information needed; the dispatcher can talk you through the rest of it once they know those two things. often they can start sending police/fire/EMS before they are finished talking to you on the phone.

I’ve called twice-once when I lived in the country-I was driving home, and saw an overturned car in a corn field. The driver was fine, but very drunk.

Second time, I heard cries from next door-went outside to see a toddler hanging out of a second store window-probably 30 feet off the ground. I still shudder when I think of it-I started screaming for help, tried to climb the fence separating our properties-couldn’t get over-ran to get the phone. When I ran back out, she was gone. I thought I had gone crazy until a woman came out with the little girl in her arms. She talked to the 911 operator-the little girl had actually fallen, but the soft dirt below the window cushioned her fall. While the mother was using my phone to talk to the 911 operator, another woman came out and they started arguing over whose fault it was that the window was open with no screen. It was really awful, and I will never forget trying to get over that tall fence, seeing her hanging there, and not being able to reach her. The ambulance came, and honestly the women seemed more concerned over fighting than what happened to the little girl. It was very disturbing.

I’ve called 911 twice – both times from my office, which is in a not-awesome neighborhood. Once because the fire hydrants had been opened by neighborhood kids and the whole city was on water restriction because it was so dry, and once because the fire hydrant was open AGAIN and the kids where chucking full water bottles and whatever else they could find at passing cars. I was PISSED when my windshield got nailed, so nope, not really scared, just irritated/angry.

I’ve called at least twice. Once when I was in a car accident. Another just recently when my dad basically overdosed in front of me and my three young children. He was having very intense back spasms and decided to take quadruple the amount of oxycodone and muscle relaxants. Good thing I called because not only did he pass out several times, but his heart almost stopped beating and they had to give him epinephrine. I was so scared calling that I couldn’t really even remember what county I was in when they asked (it was a multi-county 911). What I have discovered is that when there is an emergency, I sort of become paralyzed and yell for someone else to do something.

In high school, some of my classmates set our family car on fire (my dad was a teacher, it was directed at him) while the car was parked on the street. The police called our house and I answered. The lady told me our car was on fire, so I looked in the garage at the car that was NOT on fire and told her it wasn’t. She insisted it was, and then I realized which car she meant. She told me the fire trucks were on their way. So that was kind of the reverse, when 911 called me.

Two years ago, my husband called for me because I’d been out riding my bicycle near a farm field and was enveloped in a cloud of anhydrous ammonia. (A farmer was spraying his field and the cloud rolled toward me and I had no way to avoid it.) I felt fine but the fire department came to check me out (I waited in the driveway) just in case. We weren’t sure if it was smart to put me in the car to go to the ER because I might contaminate others.

One Friday night, my husband surprised some kids trying to steal the catalytic converter from under our car that was parked in the garage! I called 911 while he chased them, and lost them. He claims he couldn’t catch them because he didn’t tie his shoes before he took off running. We think perhaps the 40 year age difference was a factor. :)

When my son was 16, he hit a deer on the interstate and the car was stalled, at dusk, in the middle of a lane. I have no idea why I didn’t tell him to call 911 but I did even though I was 20 miles away.

The most horrible and frightening situation was when I called because my daughter stopped breathing when she was 6 days old. I was feeding her a bottle and noticed she was unusually still (took me a bit to realize her chest wasn’t moving) and the area around her mouth was blue/gray. I screamed, handed her to my husband and I called 911. We’d taken infant CPR classes in the hospital a week before but it didn’t even occur to us to do CPR until the 911 operator asked me if we knew how to do it. I told him to, he did, our daughter started to cry and the operator said the emergency crews were on the way but that the baby was now breathing. I argued with her that my baby was NOT breathing and she said she is if she’s crying! DUH! Then she wanted to keep me on the line until the police showed up and I told her I had to get off the phone to put a shirt on because I was in my bra and a pair of shorts! Our daughter was diagnosed with sleep apnea and wore an apnea monitor for 2 years. At that point, she still failed the tests but they said she was not going to die from it (it was likely her normal breathing pattern) and we had to give up the monitor. It was the scariest thing I’ve ever done. That was August 1991 and she’s a healthy 22 year old today. A funny part of this story is that our son was 3 years old at the time and we completely forgot he was even in the house while the emergency crews were there. They left and he came over to me to show me the police dog card he’d gotten from one of the officers and that’s when I remembered him!

Finally, I have recurring nightmares that a plane will crash and I witness it, so I try to call 911 and I simply cannot. I can only dial 9-9-1. I do it over and over, 9-9-1, 9-9-1, etc. The planes, crash sites and circumstances are different in every dream but the 9-9-1 scenario repeats itself. I’d love to know what that means.

Twice

Once when I was robbed at my job as a teenager

Once when I could not locate my toddler in my house (kid had crawled into bed, and fell asleep under the covers) – It was TERRIFYING.

I’m a dispatcher and I am answering 911 calls today, so this was fun to read. :)

The first time I called 911, I was probably about 5 and called “just to see what would happen.” I swear the first thing they said to me was “What is your mother’s name?” I’m sure they must have said something else, but that was the first thing I heard. I panicked and hung up and then, of course, they called back.

I called several times at my last job when the nurse had someone go to the hospital (not recommended, by the way… have someone near the patient, or who actually knows ANYTHING about the situation, call so that the dispatcher can get info!), but as of yet, have not had to call for an emergency of my own.

When I had to call off work when my cat had a veterinary emergency, I was grateful that my coworkers are 911 dispatchers cause I fell apart and probably noone else would have been able to decipher my call lol Apparently I can deal with your emergencies, but not mine!

I’ve had to call 911 twice. Once when I saw a car on the highway drive up the median wall and flip in the air. The second time was when my husband, who is type 1 diabetic, had a low so bad overnight and we had nothing in the house to bring his blood sugar back up. Very scary.

I’ve called 911 numbers of times for brush fires in Eastern WA and for hitchhikers standing in very dangerous areas of the freeway and appeared to be mentally in need of help (think rocking back and forth and talking to themselves while standing on the side of I-5 or I-405)…

But the scariest time was about a year and a half ago when I had to call when my one year old was having a seizure. It turned out to be a febrile seizure which apparently isn’t a huge deal (paramedics didn’t transfer him to the hospital at all afterward) but it was the worst and scariest moment of my whole life.

I have had 911 called FOR ME twice, once when I fainted at work and came to with my whole left side numb, so I thought I was having a stroke. Seriously, my memory of it is that like ten super-hot FDNY paramedics came, but it was not a very fun time because I barfed on myself on the way to the ER. And in the end, it was just one of my usual fainting episodes (no stroke, thankfully).

The other time, I started to have a migraine and I couldn’t speak or think clearly — so again, fear of stroke. Evidently, it was instead just a wacky form of migraine. I didn’t go to the hospital, but the medics were super nice and I kind of wanted to hug them when they left.

I also called 911 once myself, because out of my office window I could see that a building nearby was on fire. Turned out no one had reported it before I did!