Many things in life are out of our hands like floods, fires, and other natural disasters. Luckily, we can call 911 and there will be someone speeding to our rescue. But for some of the people in these stories, let's just say if it weren't for emergency responders they would've fallen victim to Darwin's survival of the fittest a long, long time ago. Some wisdom for the wise, never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups. Content has been edited for clarity.
World War Gopher
“Years ago, we had this call straight out of Caddy Shack. Some guy had gotten tired of this gopher ruining his yard. Little did he know though he was facing the Sun Tzu of gophers. The homeowner, dwelling upon his experience from Vietnam, decided that the best way to deal with the gopher was to treat the situation like a Viet Cong tunnel; in lieu of a frag grenade he poured a five gallon can of gasoline down the gopher hole, waited with a .22 peashooter, and lit it off.
The ensuing explosion caused a small crater to form in his yard. I am still thoroughly impressed that there was a proper fuel to air ratio in the network of tunnels that allowed for such an explosion to happen. However the gopher refused to surrender without a fight. The gopher ran out of the hole engulfed in flames, causing the guy’s yard to catch on fire. The gopher sprinted into the guy’s shed, still on fire, and burrowed into a void space in the wall, where he died. Like a martyr, his still flaming remains set the inside of the wall on fire as well as several flammables.
In the end, the guy’s backyard was ruined and about a quarter of his shed burned down, taking out a bunch of power tools and a zero turn mower. He definitely would have saved a few thousand dollars if he had hired an exterminator.”
Hold Still Lemme Get This On Tape
“I once had a firefighter tell me he almost died in a house fire while going back into the house to look for the owner. A neighbor was concerned about why the firefighter was still in the residence so he asked another firefighter. This is about how the exchange went:
Neighbor: ‘Why is that fireman still in the house?’
Firefighter: ‘He’s looking for the owner of the home.’
Neighbor: ‘He is right over there with the video camera.’
Turns out the owner did not think it was important to alert the fire department he was out of the house. Instead, he was just taking video of the whole event.
The fire started because the owner had tried to smother his barbecue cooker flame with left over wood from the siding that had been installed on his home. The owner did not realize it would burn his whole house down.”
Gimme What This Guy Had
“While working on the ambulance, I got called to a house for a man ‘choking on peanut butter.’ We get on scene and determine that the guy is stoned out of his mind. He is able to breathe, talk, and swallow without issue. He just feels like there’s so much peanut butter stuck in his mouth that it’s making him choke. I asked him if he tried drinking anything or rinsing his mouth out with water. He looked at me as if I was the most genius guy to have ever lived. Ran to his kitchen, got a Coke, and started drinking it. He looked at me and said, ‘Thanks man, you saved me for real.'”
Print These Reports Like Your Life Depends On It!
“My dad was witness to someone being stupid and rescued by a firefighter.
My dad worked for IBM’s tech support division for over 10 years. A customer called in because he needed to run a report and send it out to the networked printer. For whatever reason, the report was failing to generate and the guy on the phone was freaking out because some corporate big-wig demand that this report be printed and on his desk by 3 pm.
Just another day at work.
About 10 minutes into the call my dad starts to hear this strange high pitched noise in the background.
Dad, ‘Uhh, if you don’t mind my asking, what’s that noise it the background?’
Caller, ‘Oh, that’s the fire alarm.’
‘Fire alarm?’
‘Yeah, the building is on fire.’
‘Far be it from me to tell you what to do, but shouldn’t you get out of there?’
‘Dan… you don’t understand. I HAVE to get this report printed, now are you going to help me or not?’
So they continue to troubleshoot the issue. A few minutes after that my dad hears shouting in the background.
Dad, ‘Umm, there seems to be a lot of yelling in the background, is everything OK?’
Caller, ‘Yeah, it’s fine. It’s just the firefighters evacuating the building.’
‘Shouldn’t you get out of there too?’
‘Dan, I absolutely HAVE to get this report printed, are you going to help me?’
‘I’m not sure that I should.’
‘We pay our support contract. I have to get this printed and you have to help me! It’s almost 3 pm!’
‘It’s just a report I don’t think it’s worth risking your life.’
The caller starts to get furious when the shouting in the background gets much louder. A firefighter has come over to the guy on the phone and starts barking orders at him to get out of the building. The caller tells the firefighter, ‘Look, I have to print this report before 3 pm and I can’t leave until it’s printed.’
Over the phone, my dad hears the firefighter scream, ‘I don’t give a care about your dang report, the building is on fire! Now MOVE!’
There’s a scuffling noise and the phone handset on the other end drops to the ground as the firefighter physically drags the caller away. After that, all dad could hear was the sound of the fire alarm and various crackling noises.
Needless to say, the report did not get printed by 3 pm.”
This Woman Was The Real Emergency
“I’m not the firefighter, but my brother’s wife at the time was.
There was this massive structure fire at a barn in town that drew out nearly every truck in the general area – like 3 towns worth of firefighters trying to get this thing under control. During all of this, there was some lady who continuously called 911 asking over and over again, ‘What’s going on at the farm up the road?’ According to her, this woman would have to be a complete moron to not realize what was going on as the fire could be seen for miles.
Fast forward later into the night and one of the ambulances on scene suddenly leaves – obviously not normal for this sort of situation, but there isn’t much time to question it. Fast forward still and as things are finally starting to calm down and are under control, one of the volunteers on the original ambulance comes over in his own car and shuffles sheepishly over to my brother’s wife and the chief of their department. He tells them that there is a woman a little ways down the road who called the ambulance (hence why they left) and requires a lift assist, but absolutely REFUSES to let the EMTs do it. No no, it has to be a firefighter…
My brother’s wife seeing that the other departments have things under control, goes with the man to see what’s up. Apparently, it was the same woman who had called 911 over and over again and when they arrive, she is laying on the floor, absolutely wailing.
EMTs say they can’t find anything wrong from what they’ve been able to do, but with her requested firefighter, they are finally able to get this woman up. They start asking her what happened, hoping she might be more willing to share with my brother’s wife there and she says:
‘I was just feeling a little ignored. I figured this would get your attention.’
Grown woman just laid herself on the floor, called for help, insisted on a firefighter when there was no need – all because the barn fire was getting way more attention than she was and the 911 operators wouldn’t give her the gossip about what was going on.
I know she got in major trouble for abusing 911, but from what I hear from the people on both fire and ambulance, she has made a habit of calling for help whenever she feels she’s not getting enough attention.”
Little Joe
“My dad was on the Boston Fire Department for a little over 35 years. For 13 of those years, he worked at a fire station in Dorchester. In Dorchester, there is a zoo. The Franklin Park Zoo. One morning in late September, they get a call to the Franklin Park Zoo for a young girl mauled by a gorilla.
This is the sort of call they’d get all the time. Gorilla jumps at the glass, kid gets scared, parents panic and call 911.
So they hop in the truck and ride on over. It’s one of those kinda foggy early fall mornings as they walk into the zoo. A couple of the other firefighters start walking into the zoo as my dad notices a man sitting on a bench holding a little girl in his arms. Assuming this is what the call is for, he walks over to the man. The little girl has a scrape on her forehead and she’s crying but is otherwise fine. The man looks like he just saw a ghost. So my dad asks the guy what’s going on.
The man just says, ‘Little Joe is out.’
My dad says, ‘What does that mean?’
The man just repeats, ‘Little Joe is out.’
So my dad says, ‘Who the heck is Little Joe!?’
Little Joe is a 500 lb adolescent male silverback gorilla. Loose in the streets of Boston. It’s right about now that my dad realizes that he’s not exactly qualified to handle a gorilla, but he doesn’t know who to call, so he calls everyone.
Two minutes later the fire chief shows up, not knowing what the call was about yet and, jumps out of his car saying, ‘Mark, Mark, is this about a gorilla!?’
My dad says, ‘Yeah, but how’d you hear that?’
The chief says, ‘He’s standing at the bus stop on Seaver Street!’
Now the SWAT team shows up, hats on backwards, M-16s in hand and my dad, being the smart aleck he is, looks at the sergeant and says, ‘Hey, I don’t think this thing is armed.’
He caught a bit of flak for that later on
Animal control and the SWAT team worked together to take down Little Joe. It took 14 tranquilizer darts before he finally went unconscious. Little Joe is still alive and well at the Franklin Park Zoo.”
Sometimes Even Batman Needs Saved
“I get a call from a guy about cries for help coming from his neighbor’s house. The neighbor called 911. We roll up lights and sirens and sure enough, there’s a lady calling for help out the upstairs bedroom window.
Me: ‘Ma’am, we’re with the fire department, are you injured?’
Woman: ‘No, it’s my husband, he’s unconscious, please hurry.’
Me: ‘Is he breathing?’
Woman: ‘Yes, I think so.’
Me: ‘Can you let us in?’
Woman: ‘No, just break down the door.’
So we break down the front door and rush upstairs to the master bedroom only be greeted by the woman, unclothed, chained spread eagle to the bed with her husband out cold on the floor, wearing nothing but a Batman cape and mask.
Evidently, during their kinky playtime, he had climbed up on a dresser, and was going to jump onto the bed, but slipped in some lotion and knocked himself out cold. She was secured tight to the bed and unable to free herself and since this was mid 1980’s, there was no way to ask Siri or Alexa to call for help.
We loaded him up for a trip to the hospital and cut her loose so she could get dressed and join him. He made a full recovery.”
That’s Not How You Use A Whisk
“I’m an EMT, but this is my friend’s story.
Dude was spending some alone time, and wanted to stimulate himself. I guess he didn’t have a traditional toy, so he used the handle end of a whisk. The problem was that the whisk had a ball on the very end of it; the handle was a normal cylinder tube with a ball on the very end. It went in just fine, but he couldn’t pull it out himself.
Apparently when they got the call, he didn’t tell them what was going on just that he had got something stuck. They got there to see a whisk hanging out his butt. Apparently the whole thing just made everyone laugh, but the poor dude was freaking out and in pain from trying to pull it out; he also apparently tried to give it a few good tugs, which probably didn’t help.
Took him to the hospital where they gave him relaxer and lubed him up.”
The Dukes Of Fire Hazards
“I was a volunteer firefighter many years back. One summer, after a long period of no rain, two good old boys decide to have a few (dozen) cold ones and take their Jeep into a nearby field to go off-roading.
Well, 2 feet tall corn stalks that are bone-dry wind-up getting jammed up into the undercarriage, which, on a 90+ degree day, turns out to be hot enough to ignite a fire. The owner of the field sees the situation unfolding from their house and calls for fire and police.
Given the proximity to my location, I go directly to the scene after hearing the page go out and see these two idiots trying to drive the Jeep faster and faster to put the fire out. Eventually, the engine gives out, but they won’t leave the car. I physically had to reach-in, burning my arms in the process (since I didn’t respond to the station first to get my turnout gear), and pull them out – somehow, they decided that remaining in the car would slowdown the flames.
And because they thought it was a good idea to continue driving a burning vehicle around a dry field, we now have a significant brush fire and have to call mutual aid from another county to help douse the fire.
State Police get involved, I have a nice trip to the hospital. And idiots lose their Jeep and the remainder of their drinks.”
Future Fireman In Training
“We got a call about a little kid stuck in a bathtub. Nobody could make heads or tails of how a child can get physically stuck in a bathtub, so we rocked up in one of our engines and had a look.
What had happened was that the child, almost three years old, had been left in the bath to play while it drained. The drain had a sieve in it, with five holes. Kiddo had five fingers, and must have thought it a good idea to jam them into said holes. Of course, they swelled up and got stuck. So now we had a kid attached to a bathtub drain, and no way to get at the drain holding him there.
A buddy and me were sent down to grab a large hammer, angle grinder (gas-powered), safety goggles, spare helmet, dog plushie, and ear plugs.
We filled the tub back up a bit, enough so kiddo’s hand was covered in water for cooling. We gave him the plushie, with instructions to make sure it doesn’t get wet, gave him ear plugs and a Real Life Fireman’s Helmet, and went to town. Four quick cuts around the drain hole, then bash in the tiles, and finally another cut through the drain.
We then transported the boy/tub hybrid to the hospital for dehydration, since the fingers had become quite blue, and we didn’t want to induce tourniquet removal syndrome without access to proper medical care.
The little guy joined the youth fire department as soon as he was old enough, we must have left a good impression.”
The Gall Of These Moms
“In San Diego, a group of suburban moms decided to take their infants up the local hiking spot called Cowles Mountain. It’s not a particularly grueling hike as many children and elderly people can do it. However, there is a heat stroke warning posted at the trail head. Not to mention it can get pretty hot here and this last week was no exception with temperatures exceeding 90 degrees. Well these idiots took their infants up in this heat. The trail is pretty exposed and due to its easy accessibility and ‘instagram-worthiness,’ lots of inexperienced hikers flock to it. Many times with little to no water because they underestimated how hot and difficult it could be.
Needless to say the fire department/EMS and chopper were all called as these moms had taken their babies up and were too tired and exhausted to come down. They had to go up and give water, check their conditions and some even carried the babies down. I know fires are a lot hotter but I bet they were cursing out these moms in their heads as they had to hike up the mountain in pretty much full gear. The moms came strolling down laughing and flipping off the cameras as there were angry people were going to see their stupidity. This happened all because they wanted to take a group photo with their infants on a mountain on a hot day.”
Do Not Insert
“I was a Navy Corpsman so this one is probably a bit of a reach but whatevs.
Marine comes to sick call with some seriously beaten up privates. Like, lacerations, bruising. Thing was really beat up.
Asked him what he did and he insisted that what happened was that he became suddenly aroused and his Johnson hit his zipped up pants zipper, which basically went all garbage disposal on his junk. Dude would not drop this narrative no matter how many times we told him that this just doesn’t happen.
Finally, Doc (the actual MD) comes in and tells him enough of this nonsense, yada yada write him up for malingering, we need the full story.
Apparently, this dude jammed his wiener into the back of a computer tower. According to him, there was an opening back there (probably because old PC Towers in the Navy routinely had hardware swapped out and they didn’t always cover openings when things were removed). So, because he was a donkey, he stuck his finger in it and felt a light tingling sensation as his skin made contact with something electrical.
So he took the next logical step and whipped out his weenie and shoved it into the back of this computer. What he did not account for was that the opening had sharp metal edges. But once inside, he got that tingling feeling and so he felt like he might as well finish the job before he pulled out. Plus, and this is where I had to stop myself from laughing, he felt it was ‘smarter’ to pull himself out flacid rather than hard. -taps forehead-
This was not a young man. This was not a man without rank.”
What Was This Guy Even Thinking?
“I used to work in a NYC public grammar school over the summers to pay for college back in the 90’s. One of the full time employees was a nice guy but stupid. And I don’t mean he was slow or anything, he just did dumb stuff because he was careless. One time he loaded up a trailer with like 25 gallons of gas and was driving it back through the main school parking lot. He didn’t realize that container cracked open and spilled all 25 gallons in the parking lot. He didn’t want to get in trouble so he thought the best way to get rid of the evidence was TO SET THE GAS ON FIRE. He didn’t realize that burning gas gives off a LOT of black smoke and a gigantic cloud of black smoke coming from a school generally attracts a lot of attention from first responders. Panicking, he tries to put the flaming lake of gas out by DRIVING OVER IT WITH HIS CAR. The fire department gets there, screaming at him to stop driving his car through flaming gasoline. They finally get the fire out and just… screamed at this guy for like 25 minutes. It was the funniest thing I’ve ever seen.”
Now That’s A Belly Flop
“Fire department and the paramedics had to come to my work one day because some kid didn’t know the difference between a swimming pool and a splash pad…
There’s this artificial waterfall that goes down into a basin that’s only about 2 inches deep where there’s fountains and stuff for kids to play in. This kid decided to climb up the waterfall (there are multiple signs posted not to do this) and decided to dive off into the water below that again is only 2 INCHES DEEP!
Luckily the kid landed flat on his face so he survived and avoided being paralyzed but he was knocked out cold immediately and would have probably drowned, but luckily his mother heard the splat and came running over, screaming, and pulled him out.”
This Guy’s City Is Crazy
“Our station extricated a guy’s junk out of a belt sander a few weeks ago. He was apparently super polite given the circumstances.
Had one lady drive her dirt bike off a 15 foot embankment when she was high as a kite. She seemed okay for the most part but freaked out when I asked, like a smart aleck, ‘Is your arm normally like that?’ and it was shaped like a lightning bolt.
My buddy at the same department ran a house fire where a man with psychiatric problems set fire to himself and locked himself in the bedroom. The firemen made a push into the house and found him sitting on his bed FURIOUSLY stimulating himself. They dragged him out, still beating his meat, and threw him in the ambulance. Dude was jacking off non stop in the ambulance and at the hospital a few miles away. I’m not sure what happened after he was dropped off, but I’m assuming it was a race between him finishing himself off or the meds knocking him out. Not really sure which one I am hoping for more.
Had one lady try to drive through the middle of Waffle House at lunch time. We explained that it, in fact, wasn’t a drive through. 6 months later we ran the same call. On the same woman. At the same Waffle House.”