When you call 911, it’s because there’s an emergency and you need help. It’s 911 dispatchers responsibility to make sure that people receive the right kind of help when they need it.
People, however, can be kind of stupid sometimes and call 911 when they don’t truly need help–or, have done something embarrassingly stupid. Being a dispatcher may seem like a pretty traumatic and hard job, but it also leaves you with some crazy stories to tell.
28.
A lady ran over herself with her own car. She called to let us know she was okay.
This was fall of 2012. Hope she’s uh, still doing okay.
27.
Some lady wanted the fire department to come burn her house down because she thought a demon lived in it. I sent paramedics and police to check on her but I told her we’d be happy to burn her house down in a controlled training capacity if she wanted to donate it, but there was a lot of paperwork to get that started.
26.
Middle of night shift, get a Report of a guy trying to ride on a moose. Officer attends, there is indeed a male trying to ride said moose. Male is wearing a high vis vest and a helmet, which his girlfriend made him put on, for safety reasons, of course.
25.
My mom was a dispatcher in Arizona after college back in the 70s, and told me a great story about a call she got, or rather a series of calls from an Indian man (India Indian, not Native American). I can’t recall what the original distress call was about, but after that first call, he started calling back all the time because he thought she had a sexy voice. She told me he would turn the charm level up to 11, trying to woo her in his thick Indian accent. Apparently as soon as she would answer the call, his opening line was “Hello control, I looove you!” and she’d have to hold back her laughter.
24.
Got a call from a woman in the wee hours of the morning, clearly drunk and slurring.
She says : “I wan shu to send an ocifer to mah housh and takh me to the bar, wait while ah git drunk, an then takh me home.”
Me: “Ma’am I think you are looking for a taxi service.”
Her: Well you guys shushpended mah license!”
Time passes…
Her: “Okay! Ah’m ready! Come n’ git me!”
Me: Ma’am, I already told you, we are not a taxi…”
Her: “AH GOTS WARRANTS!”
Me: “Oh, well in that case…”
They said she fought like a prizefighter.
23.
“I’m super drunk and i got run over by a sled” now is northern Alberta typically this would mean a snow mobile and potentially life threatening injuries. No, no. His kid hit his ankle bone with a wooden toboggan. Didn’t even have a bruise.
22.
Once my dad got a call from the 911 dispatch. At first he was really confused because he didn’t call them in the first place. They asked
“Sir do you have a daughter?”
“Yes.. Why?”
“Well she just called and claimed you broke her heart!”
Apparently my sister got in trouble when she was about 5 or 6 and called 911 claiming “My daddy broke my heart.” She hung up in embarrassment after the dispatcher began laughing.
21.
Yesterday morning was a cold one in my area. Icy conditions on the roads, widespread crashes, all the good stuff… Lady calls in and complains about a suspicious substance on the road that made her car slip. She was driving too fast to see what it was but insisted that something strange was afoot.
20.
I’ve been a dispatcher for about 7 years now in a medium size county in Florida.
Every year on July 4th and New Years we get calls about gunshots. Every single time the caller is perfectly convinced they’re gunshots and couldn’t possibly be fireworks. They’ll say they hear automatic weapons, or my personal favorite “rapid fire shotguns”. And every single time a deputy goes out to investigate, it turns out to be the unlikely culprit of fireworks.
I had one woman call 911 to tell me she found a cell phone on the ground. That’s it.
Irate elderly male calls 911 while standing in the Sheriff’s Office lobby to report the clerk not being helpful. When I told him that’s not something you use a 911 line for, he went ape shit, going as far as threatening to break into the office and shoot me. He was subsequently arrested.
Male was arrested for domestic battery, called 911 from the backseat of the patrol car and stated he was being unlawfully imprisoned. When I told him the only thing I could do for him was to send him more deputies, he said “…no thanks” and hung up. He then proceeded to call three more times looking for a different answer. We told the deputies on scene, they took his phone away and added a charge of misuse of 911.
Had a woman call in stating she accidentally took too much melatonin. She started getting hysterical when she felt the effects of her overdose. She was getting sleepy.
19.
If I had to pick a favorite I’d have to choose the time a concerned citizen called in an animal stuck in a tree. That animal…was a bird.