Calling 911---tell us your stories

[pre6422hornet]

I didn't call but it happened to my daughter.....

We were sitting around a campfire one evening with my wife, her brother, his wife, and our 4 girls and their son. It was 4th of July so the kids had those glow sticks acting like lightsabers and such when our then 3 year old decides to bite the glowstick in half. Now she turns around and her entire mouth is filled with bright blue glow juice and she is coughing/choking. Now being a nerd about stuff and researching things before giving them to my kids I had known for years that the stuff was non toxic.

The wife and I kind of chuckled and I may have whispered " dumbass", but we both got up and she took her into the camper to get cleaned up and I went to grab a glass of milk to help wash her mouth out.

Little did we know that our scatterbrained over reacting sister in law decided to call 911 and say our daughter just ingested poisonous/toxic waste and needed paramedics immediately. I stick my head out of the camper when I kind of overhear her half screaming at the poor operator and tell her to pipe down the we had it under control.

Fast forward 5 minutes and I am talking to the 911 operator myself and she politely told me we had done the exact thing she would have told us to do and to have a nice evening... all the while our 3 years old is running around asking for a smore.

Sister in law still over reacts all the time. It now gets comical.

 

[LuketheDog]

I've only called 911 once, two winters ago. I was driving into town on 4-lane highway to pick up my daughter from school, with my two younger ones in the truck. Looking ahead maybe 1/2 mile I could see an oncoming car swerving back and forth really hard but I couldn't see anything he'd be trying to avoid, I thought maybe it was some kid goofing off on the snow and ice, so I changed to the right lane and slowed just to give the guy extra space. As he got closer he came across the low median and right at me, then swerved back to his right at the last second, maybe missing me by 6". He was so close I could see a thin silver necklace inside his shirt collar and that his eyes had a totally vacant look. He split the oncoming traffic behind me before he swerved back into the ditch on my side and high-sided onto some rocks. Fortunately everybody avoided a head-on with him. I called 911 and u-turned at the next intersection so I could give them a better description of where he ended up. I pulled my truck way off the road and went running back to his vehicle, the dude was totally unconscious and leaning over his arm rest, kind of hung up in his seatbelt, I thought maybe he was dead. The paramedics showed up a minute later and took over.

Then it got weird. When my wife got home later that day I told her all about it, described the guy, a big old dude with a pirate beard driving a dark green Jaguar. She's a doctor, and a couple weeks later she had a patient come in who'd had diabetic shock episode that caused him to crash his car on the way home from his last appointment, where she'd lectured him about managing his condition better. Suddenly she realized that her patient was the guy that almost hit me and the kids that day, not 15 minutes after she'd seen him. She got really fired up and read him the riot act about the consequences of not taking care of himself, but all he had to saw was how angry he was that he'd totaled his favorite Jag...not even a 'sorry'.

 

[EastTNHunter]

I didn't call but it happened to my daughter.....

We were sitting around a campfire one evening with my wife, her brother, his wife, and our 4 girls and their son. It was 4th of July so the kids had those glow sticks acting like lightsabers and such when our then 3 year old decides to bite the glowstick in half. Now she turns around and her entire mouth is filled with bright blue glow juice and she is coughing/choking. Now being a nerd about stuff and researching things before giving them to my kids I had known for years that the stuff was non toxic.

The wife and I kind of chuckled and I may have whispered " dumbass", but we both got up and she took her into the camper to get cleaned up and I went to grab a glass of milk to help wash her mouth out.

Little did we know that our scatterbrained over reacting sister in law decided to call 911 and say our daughter just ingested poisonous/toxic waste and needed paramedics immediately. I stick my head out of the camper when I kind of overhear her half screaming at the poor operator and tell her to pipe down the we had it under control.

Fast forward 5 minutes and I am talking to the 911 operator myself and she politely told me we had done the exact thing she would have told us to do and to have a nice evening... all the while our 3 years old is running around asking for a smore.

Sister in law still over reacts all the time. It now gets comical.

Something familiar to me about sisters-in-law over reacting. Must be a theme

 

[thomas89]

Headed duck hunting at about 0400 opening morning with my dad, came around a bend and there was a car that had just flown off the road, dust hadn't even settled. Pull over quick and the woman runs over hysterical that her friends are hurt and need help. Middle of nowhere Wyoming help can be a long way off. Fortunately had service so my dad was able to call 911 while I went and administered what little first aid I could. Driver obviously hammered out of her gourd, maybe a broken nose but she wasn't feeling much anyways. The one passenger who glagged us down was sobbing about getting her chances to join the Navy ruined (assuming she already was thinking they were getting in trouble for a DUI). The third girl was the worst off, I think she was probably laying down in the backseat and got shook up pretty good. In and out of consciousness while we were there, was a chore trying to keep her awake. Fortunately an off duty medic with a local fire department happened by (ruined his hunt as well, deer hunting with his daughter if memory serves), and he was able to step in. As the state patrol and EMS got there we sort of filtered out. Left a statement but that was it. Never did hear what happened to them.

Figure if my dad was actually ready to go when I wanted to be, we either would have gotten smoked by them coming the other direction or missed it all together.

 

[Hertervillian]

Years ago the neighbor lost his home during the mortgage crisis. Drinking coffee I see someone back up to the rear of the place. Gets out grabs a drill and a couple other hand tools and proceeds to drill the lock and Jimmy the door open.

About this time I get this “see something say something“ vibe. Call 911, moments later he gets a generator air compressor and all the necessities to blow water from the plumbing and winterize the vacant house. Officer arrives in 4 minutes (I timed it) and leaves about 10 minutes later.

Leaving the house later I went over explained I called. Guy related he’d been breaking and entering houses for years and had never been called in on. He said he always wondered why nobody did.

 

[kansasdad]

There have been "gremlins" in the electrical supply to the dental office on and off for several months now. The electric company tells me that there supply is just fine, and the three visits by the electricians tell me they are not finding anything either.

Today we are having dental operating lights surge brighter and fade, the one chair will lay the patient back but not return them upright, and the battery backup/surge protectors are once again doing their clicking noises without shutting anything down. I've already called the building owner to inform him that the gremlins are back, and then the building alarm siren goes off. I rush to the security panel and plug in the code, and the alarm continues. I walk towards where the siren speaker is blaring away, and I walked into an electrical fire smell in the sterilization area.

I call down the hallway to the front desk...."Call 911. Tell them we have an alarm going off and we smell smoke".

I grab the external hard drive for the office software, my phone, and encourage all employees and patients to grab their purses and get out. I make the loop around the building to make sure everyone is out, and head towards the front door, now holding the wall mounted fire extinguisher, ready to do battle if there really is a fire.

I ran to tell the neighbors downstairs and next door that our alarm had gone off, with smoke smell, and asked if they were sensing the same? Both places were clear of smoke, and no gremlins in their electronic equipment.


The first fire engine arrived in about 5 minutes, with second and third engines not far behind. The first firemen and I go back into the office where I show the responders where the electrical panel is, the location of the smoke odor, and where we have been having the "gremlins" in the electrical supply occur.

Dudes in protective fire gear are wondering around sniffing and looking for any source of fire, unable to find anything that would have caused the alarm to sound, or cause the electrical fire smells. One of them notices that when the air handler up on the roof kicked on, there was a flicker of the fluorescent tubes, and wondered if the AC was part of the problem (another mid 90 degree day today).

Lots of milling around by hot sweaty firemen, and eventually the Lt sends the first and second responding crews back to the firehouse. The electrician was out and checking everything once again, the electric company sent out someone to check our supply, where it was noted that the meters on the side of the building were flashing "errror" intermittently with usage data. Even the AC guy went up on the roof looking for loose connections or signs of recent electrical overload to explain the gremlins.

Nada, zip, zilch, no, nyet and hapana......nothing found to be out of order with the exception of the meters flashing error messages.

I overheard one employee say to the one who called 911, that next time she calls, she should ask that they send out the cute firemen.