"911, what's your emergency?"
911 operators have to repeat this phrase about a million times per day. Sometimes, the response is something truly serious, and the dispatcher's team must respond to an emergency where people's lives are at stake.
Other times, the person on the other end of the phone says something truly ridiculous. Check out the stories these people shared on Reddit!
[Source listed at the end of the article. Comments edited for clarity.]
He Just Couldn’t Wait To Be King
“When I was a kid I called 911 and yelled the opening vocal cry in ‘The Circle Of Life’ from The Lion King into the phone. You know, the one sung in Zulu, the lyrics of which are (I looked it up) ‘Nants ingonyama bagithi Baba,’ not that I knew the actual lyrics and just spoke gibberish.
The Lion King had just come out and I thought it was hilarious. After the third or fourth time, they sent a police officer to the house and he gave me a stern talking to. My mom was pretty embarrassed.”
Two False Alarms
“My brother called 911 multiple times just to see if it worked.
He once did it at my grandma’s condo in Florida, and we didn’t realize he had done it because he hung up immediately. As we were leaving to go to the beach, the police show up and try to find the caller, and my brother never owned up for a while.
Also, my neighbor called the cops because there was a van parked on the street near her house for a couple hours. Turns out the driver was working on someone’s house.
She called the cops again because some guy pulled up to her son while he was walking home from school and asked where house number 16 was. The kid ran all the way home because he thought the guy was going to kidnap him and the kid claimed he saw a weapon. The ‘weapon’ was a rake and the dude was a landscaper.”
First Day On The Job
“I was a 911 dispatcher in a small rural county for about 2 years. After some training, I was finally taking calls and the very first 911 call that came in was from a middle-aged man who was driving with his elderly mother. He had stopped to get gas or something and accidentally locked his keys in the car, and his mother couldn’t figure out how to get out of the locked car. I’m all ‘Ok sir, can you ask her to open the door?’ he’s all ‘I’m trying to get her to unlock the door but I don’t think she understands what I’m saying.’ I’m at a loss for words as this wasn’t the emergency I was expecting, meanwhile, I’m looking to my supervisor for some assistance and she is laughing so hard she can’t help. They eventually figured it out among themselves, but it seemed pretty stupid at the time.
Other great calls include the kid turning himself in for having illicit substances simply to spite his girlfriend (who according to the caller wouldn’t ‘STOP BOTHERING ME!’).
Another call was in the middle of the night from an elderly lady who was worried about the ice on her front step as she had to go to the doctor in the morning. And the craziest call came from a woman who was convinced that the evil teenagers in her neighborhood were in her attic making mischief and causing fires that they then used to throw her dogs and cats into. This lady also called once to inform me that her house was prepared for takeoff and she wanted to get clearance. Turns out she wasn’t all there in the head.”
The Things We Put Up With
“To ask for directions.
To ask if they can legally own a monkey.
To say they called the regular line and that girl they talked to wasn’t very helpful (dude, it’s still me).
To ask why we haven’t gotten there yet to unlock their car and can we hurry?
To say they think someone messed with their air conditioning but they don’t want to file a report or talk to anyone about it.
They heard a weird noise or saw a weird car, or a suspicious person, or something they thought was strange 30 minutes ago.
And so on and so forth.”
Lobster Attack!
“There were so many people calling 911 asking about the time, school closings, and hundreds of misdials and butt-dials. I also got asked out a couple times by lonely girls calling to chat.
There were also really bizarre people calling in with ‘I’m being attacked by a lobster,’ ‘Sylvester Stallone lives in my pores,’ ‘My children are changelings and escaped,’ ‘FBI is controlling me through my hats.’
The funniest of the non-crazy stories was a really rich and affluent guy who lived in a huge house called about a disheveled looking SUV at the bottom of his huge driveway and it wasn’t the gardeners or housekeeping. The cop had to run the tags and it turns out it belonged to his daughter and that he had bought it for her. He owned so many cars, he had forgotten about that one.
There was another call about a burglary, and the caller called back later saying everything was fine and that it was the cat.”
He Was Highly Purr-turbed
“I’m not a dispatcher but I worked security at a college and fielded the calls as I did my rounds.
The best story I have is a guy who called about a bobcat in front of the library. He called up out of breath and said there was a wildcat intimidating people so they could not enter or exit the building.
I was fairly close so I started to run over. I asked if anyone was injured and he said no. I was expecting a group of people held up at the entrance by a huge cat hissing at everyone. I told him to keep away from it and stay on the line.
When I got there I found a tabby cat perched on a bench.
I verified the caller and the cat he called about. I went over to the cat with him and started pet him, and he rolled over and let me scratch his belly.
The guy was shocked and said, ‘Oh, someone has domesticated it.’
Yup. I smiled and walked away.”
Pretty Sure You Can’t Be Dead And Also Calling 911
“I had a guy call me one night and tell me he had died. Obviously, I was pretty sure he was incorrect in his diagnosis so I started questioning him. He would not tell me where he was but I could hear him walking around (leaves underfoot and such). This was in the fall and it was cold outside. I was asking him what he could see and all he would tell me is that he died and needed me to call his mom and tell her, but wouldn’t give me her name or a phone number. Eventually the police dispatcher (who was still listening on the line) was able to get enough clues from him to make an educated guess as to his location. Sure enough, the police officers found him in a cemetery, naked and zoned out and sitting on a random headstone. He was most assuredly not dead.
Another dispatcher friend of mine had a person call and tell us that ‘she’ wasn’t looking too good and needed an ambulance. They question the caller and start CPR instructions. It took several minutes for the crew to make a scene and when they entered they found our caller performing CPR on a bathrobe. The caller had recently moved to our coverage area and had been in a mental facility beforehand.
Also, when I worked on the Law Enforcement side, people would frequently call to get the correct time to set their clocks. They knew that we had atomic clocks and ours were always correct.”
You Had To Pick THAT Metaphor?
“I have two stories that tie for the most ludicrous.
The first call was not taken by me, but a co-worker. He answers the phone and a male is screaming, ‘I’ve been stabbed in the back by my mother.’ The male is crying, screaming, all around sounds to be in pain and is pretty upset. A response call is started, with about 15 officers racing to this guy, and meanwhile, my co-worker is trying to get further information. I can hear my co-worker asking where the knife is. He has to ask multiple times, is starting to raise his voice, when I hear him ask if the caller is kidding. It turns out the caller was confused as to why he was being asked about a knife and calmly explained, about 5 minutes into the call, that there was no knife, he had been stabbed ‘metaphorically in the back’ by his mother. A few of the units choose to still respond very quickly and explain why this situation was not good for the caller.
The second call, I actually took. It was a female insisting officers come out and arrest ‘her man’ for refusing to have slept with her. The call lasted about 10 minutes, and in that time she cried, begged, and called me names for refusing to send an officer out. I had to explain multiple times he could, in fact, choose to not have relations with her, and yes he could refuse to go down on her, and that no, our officers coming out to sleep with her did not fall under the motto ‘to protect and serve.'”
Oh, Deer
“I was a 911 dispatcher for a short time. You get a lot of really stupid calls, usually people who don’t get the concept that 911 is for emergencies, but it’s not a big deal to me unless they use an unusual amount of resources (calling a lot, faking information to get higher priority, using ambulance as a taxi, etc.).
One guy called FRANTICALLY saying that he saw the dead body of a young woman, in her early 20s, wearing nothing but shorts. He gave a detailed description, including hair color, skin color, body position, the whole bit and said she was by the side of the interstate (in the middle of an affluent suburban area at rush hour) so we figured this had to be a really fresh crime scene.
We started scrambling together officers to get there ASAP, a big hassle considering it’s rush hour and they’re all dealing with accidents and stuff like that. On top of that, we can’t say what the issue is on the radio is because we have too many busybodies who monitor police radio, then call us to try to get juicy details, or otherwise meddle. So we have to get these officers to their cars to read the computer, leaving other issues, etc. And these are suburban cops in the Midwest, so a murder is a big deal.
The guy calls back a few minutes later. ‘Uh, I checked again, it’s a dead deer.’
Peeved, I announce on the radio that the trip is canceled: ‘it was a deer.’ An officer sarcastically calls back: ‘With shorts on?'”
He Tried To Be A Hero
“When I was a little boy growing up in a smallish town, I came home from school one day and found that my mom and little brother were gone. Mind you, I was in 4th grade and took the bus home and there was always someone home when I got back from school. So obviously someone had kidnapped my mom and little brother. I called 911 and the police came by. About 3 mins after they arrived, my mom came rolling into the driveway in the car. Turns out they weren’t kidnapped…
Also on another occasion, I did not call 911, but I came home and they were gone again. So crying and worried, I went to the next-door neighbor’s house — who just so happened to be the chief of police and his wife. He wasn’t home, but she was. She took care of me and fed me a few girl scout cookies till my mom got back. Good people those two.”
A Very Important Pizza Delivery
“I had a call that started out pretty dumb, but was actually pretty serious:
‘911, where is your emergency?’
‘123 Main St.’
‘Ok, what’s going on there?’
‘I’d like to order a pizza for delivery.’ (Oh great, another prank call.)
‘Ma’am, you’ve reached 911.’
‘Yeah, I know. Can I have a large with half pepperoni, half mushroom, and peppers?’
‘Ummm… I’m sorry, you know you’ve called 911 right?’
‘Yeah, do you know how long it will be?’
‘Ok, Ma’am, is everything ok over there? do you have an emergency?’
‘Yes, I do.’
‘…And you can’t talk about it because there’s someone in the room with you?’ (My moment of realization)
‘Yes, that’s correct. Do you know how long it will be?’
‘I have an officer about a mile from your location. Are there any weapons in your house?’
‘Nope.’
‘Can you stay on the phone with me?’
‘Nope. See you soon, thanks.’
As we dispatch the call, I check the history at the address and see there are multiple previous calls about domestic issues. The officer arrives and finds a couple — the female was in bad shape, and the boyfriend was there too. The officer arrests him after she explains that the boyfriend had been mistreating her for a while. I thought she was pretty clever to use that trick. Other dispatchers, I worked with had similar things happen, but that was a first for me. So in short, this wasn’t a dumb call, it just started out that way.”
Enjoy Your Informercials
A little background: I’m a night shift dispatcher for a small county in Kansas. We cover the Sheriff, Police, Fire, and EMS dispatching along with the 911 throughout the county. It’s a lot of county territory to cover, but it’s usually pretty quiet. Most 911 calls usually involve wrecks with deer, elderly ladies who have fallen and need help, LifeAlert calls, or cows on roadways.
I’ve had a call from an elderly lady that woke up from a nightmare and felt the need to call 911, spitting out random information including, ‘The gas station we are at is gonna explode the kids are playing under it. I can’t wake the driver.’ She went on awhile on a stream of thought, then started to quote an infomercial on some Shark Vacuum that runs early in the morning, and you could clearly hear the ad in the background. I sent the first responder to verify she was okay and not having a breakdown.
Another was a kid that was back visiting some family, who decided to go mudding through the county he didn’t know, after a heavy rainstorm at night. He gets lost of course, then calls 911 on a cell phone and trying to give directions of where he thinks he’s at. While he’s was on the phone, it sounded like he dropped the phone and I hear moaning on the line before it disconnects. After sending S&R and finally finding him, it turned out he was walking along the side of a mud road in the dark while talking to me and stepped over a creek embankment. He fell 10 feet and broke his leg, and the phone hit the water.”
Little Beethoven’s Emergency
“My mum used to have this piano phone. You press the keys to dial the number and when you do it makes piano noises. So I was about 5 and playing with this because we thought it didn’t work, and I was pretending to talk on the phone and play piano at the same time. Here the emergency number is 999 and I accidentally dialed it. I said ‘hello’ but when the woman started asking me questions about my name, age, and where I lived, I didn’t answer because I thought it was ‘stranger danger.’ I just sat there in silence.
Then my mum walked in and asked who was on the phone and explained the situation to the woman. I was terrified the police were going to come to my house but they didn’t.”
Steven Spielberg Would Approve
“I’m not a 911 operator, but I used to be a firefighter. We took a call from dispatch once where a lady spilled a glass of water on the top of her computer. She was afraid it was going to burst into flames.
When we got there I just kinda swiped the water from the top of the case. Then we got a nice long story about how one of the major film publishing companies (Miramax maybe?) has a freight train in Wisconsin transmitting radio waves into her brain to make her forget things. Apparently, she knows the truth that the only people who can become famous are the ones that Steven Spielberg approves of. Also, she slept in a box lined with aluminum foil.”
I Hope She Got A Good Tip
“When I was 16, my parents asked me if I could babysit for a kid whose parents they were going out to dinner with that night. It was my first time ever babysitting. The kid’s parents warned me that the kid gets out of control occasionally but I didn’t think twice about it.
The night is going fine, and when it’s eventually time for the kid’s bedtime, he begins to put up a bit of a fight. After a little argument, I get him upstairs and into bed. I close the door and begin thinking that that was easier than I expected. About a half hour later the doorbell rings. I go upstairs and see flashing lights right outside the door. I open up the door and there are five cops, two with weapons drawn, three with hands on holsters. Turns out the kid called 911 from his room after I put him to bed and told the cops there was a stranger in the house trying to kidnap him.
I never babysat again.”
He Wanted To Retire To Bed
“I volunteered as an EMT for a while, and this is by far the stupidest call I’ve ever been on.
It was about 2 am. I had just gotten back from a call and was ready to go to bed. I wearily climbed the stairs, counting down the seconds until I could lay my head on the rock hard pillow that is provided. I clamber into my bed, and no longer than 5 seconds after my head hits the pillow–WOOOO EH EH EH EH. Crap. Gotta go out again. So we all run to the ambulance, hit the sirens and we’re off.
The address that we are responding to is a well-known retirement home, so we’re all pretty bummed it’s going to be one of those calls again. We pull up to the home and walk in the lobby. Almost immediately, an elderly lady stands up and yells, ‘GO HOME I DON’T NEED YOU.’ We stare at her dumbfounded. ‘What do you mean?’ I ask her. She looks at me sheepishly and croaks, ‘Well I left my LifeAlert on the coffee table… and I think my cat got to it. So I’m ok.’ I’m seeing red. Your cat?! It’s 2 am and you call me for a cat? Of course, I don’t say that. I just say, ‘That’s alright. Call us if you need anything.’ My driver was not so kind. ‘If your cat does that again, I’m taking it,’ he said before storming out.
Regardless, a cat called 911 that night.”