Being a 911 operator is no easy task. From car accidents to hostage situations, these folks experience the full brunt of tragedy. Here are some of the most chilling stories from 911 dispatchers.
Chewy The Dog To The Rescue
“This was 10+ years ago, but one night I had a call from a woman who jumped out of a moving vehicle to escape an assault (suspect was an ex-boyfriend who had done it in the past). Luckily she was still able to run, but she was definitely injured and had no idea where she was – and this was when a cell phone’s location was just the closest cell tower.
She was (understandably) hysterical and I spent the first few minutes trying to get her calm and quiet enough to avoid detection. She found one of those big green electrical boxes to hide behind for a few minutes while the suspect drove back and forth looking for her. Once she couldn’t see the headlights anymore, she was able to coherently speak to me and we determined she was in an office park. There were building numbers, but she wasn’t near a street sign, so that wasn’t very helpful. I told her to check the nearest mailbox and to read me the address on any mail that she could find. It took her a minute or two of running behind buildings to locate a mailbox, but when she did we were able to pinpoint her location. Half of the deputies in my county responded, and the happy ending to the story is that the suspect was still in the office park and when he tried to flee on foot, ‘Chewy’ caught up to him and made the arrest. Oh, Chewy was a 120-pound German Shepherd who served a long and distinguished career at my agency 🙂
This wasn’t a call that necessarily keeps me up and night, but it was the scariest ‘in the moment’ call I ever took.”
An Incredibly Sad And Chilling Story
“I have a story. I worked with EMS while my friend was dispatched for this call. I was second so I never got to interact with the person in question, but I listened to the 911 recording after and it still haunts me to this day.
Got called to do backup for a ballistic wound initially. Farm out about 20-30 mins outside of town. Turned out to be a father who recently lost both his parents within the month and didn’t want his family to go through with such loss either. This guy then decided to kill his entire family to spare them that same fate. It sounded like something from a horror movie. Father killed his wife and two kids. We get a call from the daughter who’s about 13. I don’t know how she even managed to call us but she’s been shot in the head and is somehow still alive and conscious.
The call was about 30 minutes long, but the father was in the same room as her and the rest of the recently murdered family members. She was sitting on her bed with a bullet in her head just saying in the most monotone voice ‘I’ve been shot, my family is dead, my daddy has a weapon.’
Just in so much shock that she couldn’t express any emotion. You could hear long pauses of silence as the dispatcher tried to get an idea of the situation and how the daughter and dad were just staring each other down for five minutes at a time with nothing but breathing to be heard and the daughter answering the dispatcher’s questions.
About 30 minutes go by of the dispatcher going, ‘Are you alright? Is he still there? Does he still have the weapon?’ followed by monotone answers from the child. Eventually, you can hear the sound of sirens in the background and the father leaves the room followed by a loud crack, the dad shot himself and died right as we were pulling up
She ended up living but had lost every single member of her family that week. I don’t know what happened to that poor girl after all that.
That call is the reason I never wanted to pursue dispatch ever again. My friend was an absolute champion for how he handled it, but he never wanted to listen to it again.”
She Would Have Cried Tears Of Joy
“My mom told me of one call that bothered her for the longest time. The son in a family of I thinks it was 6-7 other kids and a mom and dad. Calls in and are speaking so quietly and in the background, all my mom said she heard was crying and what sounded like fighting.
This kid said he was 6. And he was calling because his dad was hitting his mom but his brothers got in a fight with his dad because of it.
My mom said she heard the kid scream and then the call ended. That little boy was able to tell her where he lived before the call ended. But by the time the police got there, it wasn’t pretty.
The other kids were beaten pretty badly. The mother was out cold but survived. But the little boy who put in the call was beaten within an inch of his life. His face was all broken, bloody, and he wasn’t responsive. They had to shoot the dad and my mom never found out what started the whole fight.
She told me that one hurt her the most because she felt if that boy wasn’t talking to her he wouldn’t have been hurt. She knew it wasn’t her fault but she felt bad for the boy.
When she died a few years ago, that family found where we were having her funeral precession I think it’s called. And they all wanted to say thank you one last time. My mom had a lot of crazy stories when she was a dispatcher, but that one hit her the most. And I know she would have cried tears of joy to see those kids alive and well.”
“Everyday Was Something New”
“I’m a former 911 operator. There are a few that still get me sometimes, but only after thinking about them for a while.
They played us a message in training, and it hit like a punch to the gut because of our inexperience. The woman had called 911 because her son had a knife and was threatening her. He ended up coming after her before she could tell us where she was, but in order for her to stay on the line with us, she threw her phone. The son slit her throat, and we had to listen to her die for an obscene amount of time while the police headed to the location that the system gave us. Afterward, when the cops showed up, he ran at them with the knife and they shot, so we got to hear him die as well. Ever heard agonal respirations? You don’t want to.
The one that still gets me from when I was in the room is a call that a coworker took right next to me. He was usually laid back and jovial, super easygoing. Everyone knew something messed up had happened when he sat up and started working more intensely than we’d ever seen him. After the call was complete, he went to our supervisor and asked for the rest of the night off. Turns out the call he got was a woman screaming because she went to check on her 9-year-old child and found the kid hanging in the closet. They’d hung themselves because of bullying. That was the most shaken any of us had been in a long time. The room was so quiet while it played out.
I took a call from a woman who told me her ex said he was going to kill her and her young children. They’d fled their house on foot but his truck was circling them. Before I could get her to calm down and give me her location, she started to scream, and the phone clattered to the ground. After a moment, a little girl picked up and said hello. She told me her mom was just sad, not hurt–I tried for a location but she couldn’t read to tell me the names of the buildings nearby. Before I could try for descriptions, she said, ‘Mommy is better now,’ and hung up. I called again and again, and after about thirty calls, the little girl answered the phone. She sounded like she was in a car. I identified myself and asked where she was. All she told me was, ‘I’m not allowed to talk to you.’ The caller was unable to be located and I never heard from them again.
There were also a couple of miscellaneous stabbings, domestic violence issues, child trafficking busts, attempted suicides, and murders that I’d taken while I was there. Also a few school shooting threats and domestic terrorism threats. At one point, my own BOSS went missing on my birthday, and his body was only very recently found.
Every day was something new.”
Just Another Day On The Job
“I took on an abused kid for therapy for various reasons ended up listening to the 911 call their mum made. Long story short mum walks in to see the kid getting abused by the babysitter. Mum went mental and beat them unconscious in front of the child. Mum rings 911 and gives full story she knows from the second she walked in, hasn’t asked the child any questions until police are present ‘because I can’t guarantee I won’t pick up the butchers knife in the chopping block next to me and just hack them to bits and hide their body.’ Said that in the 911 call calm as day. The entire call was really eerie with how calm mum was but you could hear the love she has for her child and her acceptance of whatever consequences were coming her way, it wasn’t so much pride in her voice but it was a tone of ‘I don’t care what happens to me, I saved and protected my child after failing them. Come what may, I did my best by here and I’d do it again.’
Altogether it was a 15-minute call before police showed up and the abuser woke up about minute seven and that’s when stuff got… Well… All you hear is her saying ‘Right you’re gonna wanna tell the officers to step on it as xxx is coming round and you can get right off if you think I’m letting them out of this house other than with an officer,’ frantically typing for dispatcher trying to keep the situation calm when the abuser freaks the heck out, screaming, swearing, threatening mum and suddenly you hear the mum struggling to breathe, it was obvious she was getting strangled when suddenly the abuser screams then all goes silent except for gargling.
The kid had snuck back into the kitchen (where they were) at the sound of the screaming, saw the abuser strangling mum so grabbed a kitchen knife and stabbed the abuser (can’t remember where) and in that moment they let go of mums neck so mum grabbed a knife and slit the abuser’s throat.
That phone call got mum off of all charges on self-defense. I’ve heard a few dispatch calls in my line of work which is unusual for therapists but due to the cases, I take on there has been a handful that it was deemed by the family the calls were relevant for therapy. But yeah, I and the dispatcher happened to know each other through our kid’s school and I said to them after I heard it if they wanted a few free sessions I had time and was happy to sit with them due to how horrific the call was and we became friends instead, I know this still occasionally gives them nightmares to this day and we’re talking a few years now and it does me too sometimes.”
“What Did You Do?!”
“A little bit late but one I can contribute to. I was a 911 call taker for an ambulance service for a stint before having to move and leave the service. I don’t have a ton of stories but I have a few that stick out.
The ones that bothered me at the end of the night were the 12-15-year-old kids, suicidal, and alone with no one to turn to. One, in particular, had cut their wrist, didn’t know their address, and was at home with their mom in the other room but they didn’t feel comfortable going to them for help. When they were finally convinced to go the mom just said ‘Jesus Christ what did you do.’
When asked to report how bad the wound was they said they couldn’t tell cos the light was and moan and groaned that we asked them to turn on the light to tell us the status of their kid’s wound. It’s sad when kids that young have nowhere to turn to.
Another that stands out is a man calling for his kid’s mom who took too many substances. Can hear the patient in the background screaming and yelling. I ask how she’ll be for the safety of my crew, and informed him we’ll be having the cops come strictly for safety. Finish my triage and downstream the caller to PD. Normally we hang up once PD takes over but for some reason, I decided to stay on the line and listen. Girls freaking still, caller starts comforting the kid that’s 6 months old, PD is getting info. Slowly the patient starts getting quieter and goes unresponsive, caller starts freaking out. I unmute myself and take over the call to start controlling her airway. She’s completely unresponsive and starts to vomit. So I’m sitting there trying to control her airway and have the caller clear out the vomit while he’s trying to comfort his 6-month-old. You could hear how scared he was in his voice. PD and EHS arrived together, she started coming too as they were walking in.
The last one that sticks out is an anaphylaxis call. The kid ate a cookie that had peanuts and he didn’t know about it. He didn’t have his EpiPen with him. The town he was in didn’t have a station, the closest ambulance was about 40 minutes away. I stay on the line and he starts going downhill, he’s puking, swelling up, his friend is freaking watching him. I can hear the wheezes through the phone. I’m watching the ambulance slowly make its way towards them. Kids slowly losing consciousness. I’m prepping the friend on the next steps Incase he goes unresponsive. Kid loses consciousness and breathing slows drastically as EHS finally arrives. We were moments away from starting compressions on him.
I’m sure there’s more I can think of. But I usually don’t think of them until prompted by something someone says.”
Thank God For Flimsy Shower Curtains!
“I’ve been a police dispatcher for a little over two years. The call I’ll never forget is the first suicide caller I got. It was around 11:30 pm and this girl calls 911. She must have been 19-20 years old. All she says is that she is just calling to let me know where to find her body. I ask her where she’s at; an address, intersection, anything. She tells me she’s old enough to know that I already have her location, so she doesn’t need to give it to me. That’s not true. All I have is the location of the cell tower her cell phone is pinging off of. No way I can find her. I plead with her a bit, and she finally gives me an address.
Then, I ask her how she’s planning to do it. I’m trying to keep her on the line as long as possible so she doesn’t actually hurt herself, but she doesn’t answer me anymore. I decide to get the paramedics on the line so we can get police and fire rolling to her location. While I’m connecting to the fire department, I hear this crash and a choking sound. I don’t know what she did, but my heart drops. I’m thinking she killed herself with me on the line. I give the address to FD and I have PD on the way. I’m listening on the radio while I’m trying to get this girl to talk to me again when I hear the officers ask to verify the address, they don’t see a house there. Shoot!
I finally get this girl to come back on the phone and she’s crying hysterically. I ask her what happened and she tells me she was in the bathroom and tried to hang herself. She was too heavy and the shower curtain bar bent. I’m a bit relieved because she’s not dead, but she’s still in danger. I asked her to give me the address again and even though she’s on the same street, her address is further south. NO! I have to get officers and EMS that are closer to go.
I start talking to her and so far so good. Officers get there, but they can’t find her. I’m freaking out because I’m thinking she gave me the wrong address again. And she stops talking to me again. Just an open line. I don’t know what to do. Silence. I attempt to hang up and calling her, no answer. I’m thinking I messed up. I ask my supervisor if there is anything else I can do, and they reassure me and tell me I did all I could. I listen to the police radio for a bit and see that the officers managed to get into the house and found the girl and she was being transported to the hospital. It was a huge weight off my shoulders. I took a break for a few minutes to collect my thoughts and went back to answering more calls. We were busy.”
The Police Had No Choice But To Open Fire
“I worked as a dispatcher and I can remember one of the most hectic days of my life on the job. Something big was going down and we were only able to hear bits and pieces of radio chatter from our police units on the scene. There was some kind of disturbance with our comms but either way we were unable to get the full picture from our troopers at the scene. As a dispatcher, I was also getting calls from other units who were asking about what was going on and if anyone needed help.
Unfortunately, we were only able to give approximate GPS locations of the patrol cars that were responding. Finally, we had a bit of a breakthrough on our signal and were able to assess the situation. One of the troopers made it back to his cruiser and updated us. I could hear the nervousness in his voice as he gave us the story. The standoff was going something like this. All the troopers on the scene were currently okay, but the suspect at large that started all this had taken an entire logging crew hostage and forced all 10 of them into the cab of a semi-truck. We stayed on the line for a long time but no progress was being made.
That’s when I heard yelling in the background. Some kind of commotion. Then shots, lots of shots. Pop, pop, pop, pop. All I could hear was the rev of the big rig engine and rounds being fired over the radio on top of everyone on the scene trying to convey the chaos that’s going on to us all at once. It was absolute chaos on the comms. Something was going down but it was almost impossible to discern what.
This is where I’m glad in other parts of my life I was trained as a dispatcher. You develop an ability to listen to multiple conversations at once. Pick out the details you need to paint the picture all while typing the info into the system and dispatching other units and responding to those who are talking to you.
By the time the smoke and dust had settled, I finally got a better understanding of what went down. But boy was it a tense 30 minutes over the radio. The perpetrator had driven his semi-truck full of hostages directly into the police barricade. We’re talking full throttle, foot on the gas, full speed. The troopers with no other choice opened fire directly into the truck cabin to take out the driver.
Miraculously the officers don’t kill anyone except the driver but unfortunately, one of the hostages was wounded. He thankfully did not succumb to his wounds but was instantly taken to the hospital. We also discovered that the girlfriend of the perp and his child were in the cabin with the logging crew as well. I thanked God the child was not harmed. By far the most chaotic day on the job. Those minutes of radio silence and contact seem to feel like forever.”
A Painful Memory And Lesson
“Here we go, this is my darkest call for help. Before becoming an EMT, I was a team leader for a lifeline service (emergency buttons for old people). In the UK these can be linked to smoke alarms. A call came through for a smoke alarm activation in a house roughly about five mins away from our call centre. All I could hear initially was the beeping of the smoke alarm. It was distorted because it was so loud. In the background I heard a faint but panicked call for help and what sounded like the service user desperately asking for water.
I obviously called the fire service. I kept the call open and listened as a roaring sound gradually got louder and louder. I then could hear a cracking and popping sound (probably the windows). I’m not fully sure what I heard then, but it sounded like the man faintly screaming and making gurgling sounds. After several minutes of listening to this and repeating instructions for him to get outside, I could hear respirators and the beeping of the fire service’s radios. At this point,, I decided to leave the call centre being run by my colleagues and drive to this house. I thought they must have rescued him, but I was in denial about what I actually heard. Once I arrived, the fire service told me that they still hadn’t found anyone. About an hour later, I was informed that they had found a body.
This man was a wheelchair user. He was found next to his wheelchair by the back door, locked inside the house. I had to go to coroner’s court to explain my involvement. This is where I learnt he was a smoker who regularly lit his cigs with matches. He also used a paraffin-based cream for his skin. It was believed he had lit a cig, dropped the match onto his knees and accidentally set fire to himself. He had to be identified using his dental records.
The cries for help and the noises of gurgling and screaming still haunt me to this day. I’m not even sure if was him gurgling or just something else making a similar sound. But I can’t get the image of what it looked like out of my head. This was about three years ago now.
I will never let myself forget this man. He taught me that you should never get emotionally invested in an incident. I’ve seen and dealt with equally as nasty a situation as an EMT. But thanks to this gentleman, I can let go of the emotional baggage that comes with ambulance work.
Sorry for the lack of structure in this story. It was painful to write.”