The work of emergency dispatchers is incredibly challenging and sensitive. It’s because of their dedication, speed, sound judgment, and perseverance that lives are saved. But this job takes a toll. It is extremely stressful. Often, in the most unexpected ways.
Heroic 911 operators opened up about the strangest and scariest calls they’ve ever gotten in a couple of brutally honest online threads. There, they spilled everything, including the emotional impact that these bizarre emergencies have. You’ll find their tales below. Warning: some of these stories are very disturbing.
#1
Obligatory “not 911 operator.” I’m the son of the caller.
My dad called 911 late one night to report hitting a 6 foot tall chicken while driving and running off nto the ditch. He had just crashed his car and his voice was a bit shaky on the phone, so the operator asked him to repeat himself a couple of times and then promised to send someone to help. The first cop on scene got out of his car with a breathalyzer in hand. By the time he got to the back of my dad’s car, he was laughing hysterically over his radio telling people that it wasn’t a DUI call; my dad actually did hit a 6 foot tall chicken.
And that’s the story about the night my dad and all the local cops learned about emu farming.
Image source: KeithCarter4897, andrewminsk123
#2
Not me, but my cousin. She had this lady who would call regularly and often make up stories, most likely due to loneliness, but they still had to send someone out every time. So one day when they got a call from her they figured it would be another one of those calls.
Cousin: “911, what’s your emergency?”
Her: “There’s a lion in my living room.”
Cousin: “There’s a lion in your living room? What’s it doing?”
Her: Pauses to ask it what it was doing “I don’t know, just standing there. Can you send someone over?”
Turned out there actually was a lion cub in her living room that had escaped from a circus or something nearby.
Image source: SaturnOrchidDragon, bokodi
#3
The very first emergency call I took by myself during training (trainer was hooked into my phone and could jump in whenever). I answered a 911 while my trainer was trying to grab a cup of coffee from the machine (long cords) and as soon as the phone connected there was, what sounded like, an explosion and people screaming all over the place.
Scared the Jesus out of my trainer who sprinted back to the desk thinking I had just picked up some huge disaster or accident, takes over the call starts asking questions. And it turns out what we heard was just rushing water from a hot water heater that ruptured and was spewing water all over these two girls’ apartment and they were freaking out not knowing what to do about it.
Bonus story:
Had a similar call a few year later, picked up to a bunch of people being loud, sounding panicked, talking about someone being locked in a car. Thought it was a child locked in a car (a very high priority call for my agency, due to being in Florida and a few recent deaths).
So I put the call in as Urgent, while trying to get anyone on the phone to actually talk to me. But then I hear a door open, and someone in the background scream: “ITS OUT, THE CHICKEN IS FREE” *phone disconnects*
*Florida*.
Image source: htaedfororreteht, EyeEm
#4
Lots of calls from elderly people hallucinating because of a UTI. One woman had been following CPR instructions and when the crew arrived, she was doing (very gentle) chest compressions on her slightly confused, but very much alive, cat.
Image source: dustydigital101, freepik
#5
Not me, but my dad works in an emergency room, and one time he had to treat someone who had been attacked by an owl. The owl was unconscious on the side of the road, and she thought it was gone. Because she didn’t want the children on the school bus to see the dead owl, she decided the best course of action would be to put the owl in the back of her car. Unfortunately the owl was alive. It woke up and attacked her.
Image source: PancakeDictator, stefamerpik
#6
Okay so my friend is a former 911 operator and she told me that she got this call from what sounded like an old man. Be was telling her that its been awhile and that she should come back over. Like “Hey its been so long. I miss you. Do you still remember the address? 123 Street, remember?” She assumed that he was just senile or something. Turns out he had someone in his house and he didn’t want them to know he was calling 911
EDIT: Ok for clarification she did dispatch someone just in case the old man was incapable of taking care of himself bc she thought he was senile and that’s how they found out.
Image source: Unizombiecorn, EyeEm
#7
“911 what’s your emergency?”
“There’s a pig in the road. A big one.”
“Sir where are you?”
“At the stoplight. It’s the biggest pig I have ever seen. Get someone here now!” (One stoplight town, the bar is near the intersection.)
“how big is the pig?”
“About the size of a Volkswagen?”
“How much have you had to drink?”
“I’m not drunk! It’s a giant pig the size of a small car! What is wrong with you people?”
Officers show up to find a full grown hippo that had escaped from the local wild animal park. Big… pig.
Eta: this was at 2:30 am when the bars close.
Image source: neinta, wirestock
#8
My sister is an EMT in a small rural college town. Apparently there have been more than one calls about horses collapsing and hurting their rider/handler (broken arms, legs, trapped under horse, etc.). When she was new to it, someone just described it as a collapsed horse, and she thought that they were supposed to treat the horse’s condition.
Image source: ScaryLittleLamb, YuliiaKa
#9
We had a lady who would call all the time about people in her yard or on her house, usually doing…nasty things. Always a false alarm. This lady had been calling since way before I got my job, and even now after I’ve switched agencies, she’s probably still calling. She’s mental, but not a danger to herself or others, so no real need to commit her involuntarily.
Well, one day we get a call from her, about a man at her house, “causing the troubles” for her. My supervisor, who had answered the call, finally got fed up and asked to speak to the man. To everyone’s surprise, the woman handed the phone over to the man, and there WAS someone there.
It was her brother, he was there trying to get her committed. We ended up, I believe, asking him to leave the property, because he couldn’t have her committed against her will at that time.
Just goes to show you that crazy doesn’t always mean wrong.
Image source: SorryLove84, The Yuri Arcurs Collection
#10
I responded to a man in his whitey tighties standing on the yellow lines in the middle of the road. Arrived on scene to find this to be true. The reason he was in the middle of the road was to practice his karate moves on cars. Dispatch was even having a hard time keeping from laughing.
Image source: Austinwmyers, maria69
#11
Hmm
One day I had walked in after getting a subway sandwich, my shift started at 1pm. Coworkers had recieved both 911 and normal calls from a wife and mother about their husband/son. He was just walking around and talking about taking all the children to heaven and circling the house for hours. There was a newborn, a toddler and I think a 5 year old.
It was on a weekend and our chief advised that as long as he isn’t acting dangerous or violent, just odd, then they can wait for a mental health warrant from the justice of the peace on monday. It’s east texas and it’s a good 20-30 minute drive going the speed limit to get anywhere in the county, and sometimes over an hour from one end to another, if you know where you are going.
Well, this continues, up until about 11pm. The mother and wife are getting more and more antsy that he’s been walking in circles all day and muttering the same thing, for hours.
Then I get a call that begins with a loud bang, screaming and crying from the wife and her newborn.
The husband had killed his two sons and mother with a shotgun, and was coming for her.
She cried that why didnt we help them, and to please save me and my babies.
And then after about 10 seconds, another bang – the wife was killed near instantly and the baby had 1-2 pellets into its head, and was making gurgling sounds before dying.
After that, maybe a minute later, I heard another bang, the guy had put a slug into his shotgun and blasted the top portion of his face off – laid on the ground and drowned in his blood.
and thats it.
Image source: Bletnard, Drazen Zigic
#12
My friend in the ER told me how someone passed out on an escalator and his hand was running unto the grate where the top of the escalator meets the floor for half an hour before someone found him. His hand was pretty messed up from what I heard.
Image source: theotherotterhere, wavebreakmedia_micro
#13
I answered the phone and gave my usual, “911, do you need Police, Fire, or Ambulance? ” and the person on the other end just started screaming, “BEEEEEEEEEEEEES!! BEEEEEEES!!” I assumed that the bees were neither mugging him nor on fire, so I put it through to ambulance because what the even.
Image source: CL_Adept, wirestock
#14
My mom was a dispatcher for 20+ years. The eeriest call she ever told me about was one that started off with no voice, only breathing. She kept asking yes or no questions, working out a system to guess what was going on. Eventually he could talk a little bit and said the person who hurt him was still there, so the officers went in guns drawn. He’d said the person was there but hadn’t specified that they were passed away.
Turns out the guy couldn’t talk because his throat was sliced open. Which he had done to himself. To make it look like his wife, whom he took the life of, had attacked him first.
Image source: UncomfortableChuckle, DC Studio
#15
I got dispatched for neck pain. Get there, find out a couple were having s*x on a couch when the female heard a large pop in her head, followed by a splitting headache and nausea. We transport and after a CT scan find that she somehow developed a tear in her arachnoid meningeal tissue. Serious s**t, but humorous and odd.
Image source: jambolino23, sergey_pakulin
#16
A friend of the family was (potentially still is) a paramedic with the helicopter service here. I’m not sure if this was when he was a ground based or in the helicopter but he enjoyed this story.
He was called out to a head trauma incident and arrived to find a man sitting in his living room, acting very normal for a call like that. So he asked what was wrong and the man said “well, I’ve got this here,” and turned to show a screwdriver buried to the hilt in his head.
So the paramedic obviously said something along the lines of how that isn’t good and the man said “nah, it’s alright,” and began turning the screwdriver.
They told him to stop.
Image source: jacktherambler, photoroyalty
#17
Obligatory not a 911 operator, but my soon to be mother in law:
She got a call that a guy and his room mate were doing d***s. H****n. And the caller’s friend overdosed. So this absolute Mensa hooks up a couple wires to the inside of a toaster, turns the toaster on, and attaches the wires to his unconscious friend’s testicles.
Honestly, not sure if it successfully electrocuted the unconscious guy, but the caller definitely seemed to think it would wake his friend up.
My mother in law’s response? “Sir please don’t do that again”.
Image source: anon, pch.vector
#18
I was a “0” operator, not 911. But, many small towns didnt have 911 so I got quite a few emergency calls.
I got a call from a 13 year old girl once that had just gotten home from school. She couldnt find her father, but there was an ominous note there that she had read to me. I had police on the way and told her to wait outside for them. Rather, I heard her walking around her house, going from room to room, opening doors looking for him. After about a minute, she let out a blood curdling scream yelling “HES HERE! HES HERE! HES HERE!”
He was hanging dead in the garage. Was a terrible call. I got a 15 minute break and had to get back on the board taking calls again. Its been almost 20 years and I can still hear her voice.
Image source: RaChernobyl
#19
It is not me: My friend had to take care of a couple doing their thing in a tree. They somehow got stuck and had to call for help getting down. When he and his team arrived it he saw his cousin, ofcourse all naked.
Image source: DoodleDwarf
#20
Was about to leave after a really calm night shift. Take one last call. This guy just ask for an ambulance for his mother like so many early in the morning. No panic or anything in his voice.
So as always I ask him whats happening before I transfer him to the paramedics. And he just say “Well I think I just killed her but Im not sure if she’s dead yet” and he put the phone on the side. 30sec pass no sound.
He pick back up and tell me. Well I just made sure and stabbed her a few more times and put the knife in the sink. I’ll be waiting outside bye.
9 years and still clear in my mind. Turn out he was mentally sick and her mother kept him home.
Image source: Cryax77
#21
Worked as a 911 dispatcher a few years ago. An old man called one day. He was all panicked. Just by hearing his voice, I was sure I was going send the ambulance for his dead wife.
I asked him a few questions about his address and I asked him calmly : sir what’s the emergency ?
He was still panicked and told me with a shaky voice : my wife. She picked the margarine in the fridge and it’s all turned to oil !!! What should we do ?
I waited a few seconds expecting a burst of laugh but no. The poor old man was serious. He had margarine issue and call the 911.
Good times.
Image source: Jaaldek1985
#22
This one requires a little backstory before the actual call. We had a female that called quite often, even moved from our jurisdiction to another location, but because we were better at customer service, she wouldn’t call them on 911, she’d call our 7-digit non-emergency line to get us. She called regularly, often for ridiculousness like the time she told me her gay neighbors, who were abominations, were also watching her while she showered. Another instance, she called to let us know elves were at her house and had stolen both her hair and her uterus. Needless to say, not all there. Every time we ask her if she wants someone out there, and she always says no.
Fast forward awhile, she’s in this other jurisdiction so we can’t respond mind you, and tells us that a man was smoking cigarettes under her mattress. We go through the usual routines for her, and surprisingly she says she wants someone over. We call the local PD and tell them the nature of her call and politely suggest, due to her out-of-the-ordinary request to see someone, that they send someone out. Police arrived to find a homeless man smoking cigarettes under her bed. He’d pried open a window and snuck in to get out of the weather.
Few crazy/funny/weird calls that are just bizarre:
Lady calls to complain that the power entering her house is now coming from a different direction, due to construction down the road from her to the north and that it is causing power fluctuations. Being rational, I let it go and go to tell her that it’s a power company problem, not 911. She them says it’s our problem because every time the power fluctuated, people entered her house. My personal login was that it must be interfering with her alarm, so I asked how they were gaining entry, to which she responded “Through my chest.”
My brain tried to rationalize it in any way I could, but nothing was coming to me, short of someone tunnelling into her home, which was absurd. So, my next question was “What chest?”
“Through my chest, you know, from right between my breasts.” She received a prompt response.
Next up was the woman that gave me a general area to check because “Zombies were surrounding her house”, and she wanted us to “Get out there and do what we do”.
Then there was Jesus, the Morning Star, the Trinity, who needed help because she had lost her throne and wanted help finding it.
Image source: anon
#23
Another funnier style call that we had was during the winter. It was extremely cold for where we live, (Alabama, in the single digits) We had been getting several calls about water pipes bursting. I took a 911 call right after taking 6-7 calls about pipes bursting. Naturally the woman sounds very disgruntled and said that her water just broke at 3:30 in the morning. Me, not thinking, asked her who her water was through. She responds with, “What the f**k are you asking me, my water just broke!”. That is when the light bulb lit up, she was pregnant.
baby was born healthy by the way.
Image source: Calfee911
#24
I am not the source, this happened to my brother in law. He was a paramedic and his ambulance was responding to a call in the poor part of the city. A young girl was bleeding. They got there and the girl said she was bleeding from her v****a. The mother was there but was clueless. They looked around and counted the number of siblings. I don’t remember the exact number, but it was over a dozen. The mother had never had a period in her life. She really did not know what it was and could not explain it to her daughter.
This is my favorite true story of how messed up the welfare system can be.
Image source: ppachura
#25
Not me, but my aunt is a dispatcher. She got a call a couple years ago from a guy who, *ahem* had something stuck in him… she’s actually dealt with this type of thing before. Anyways, paramedics get there, and find out it was an entire butternut squash up this guy’s a*s and he couldn’t get it out.
Image source: jajajamyn
#26
My wife has worked the poison information center for years … she has stories…
Such as this one: Guy called, clearly in pain, ill and ease, and throughout the call my wife could hear the voice of a woman laughing uncontrollably. Turns out the guy wanted “a bit of quality intimacy” with his girlfriend, who just wasn’t in the mood that night. He can’t sleep, on account of this major case of blue balls. So he gets up, still in the dark, grabs the lotion and heads to the toilet to masturbate. That’s when the burning started. Turns out it wasn’t lotion after all, but a tube of Neet.
So .. the poor blue balled sumbitch is recounting this while in the throes of horrible dickhurt while his girlfriend is laughing hysterically … and the laughter gets contagious as first my wife, then her co-workers all overhear whats happening and start laughing uncontrollably themselves. Told him to put it in a glass of cold ice water, with tears in their eyes.
…
On the other hand, there was the time a guy called after his pet tarantula fanged him in the tongue, after he put it in his mouth…
Image source: Gargatua13013
#27
My dad was an ambulance driver for the French army in Tahiti and he received a called one day that an intoxicated army officer jumped into a pool without any water…headfirst.
Image source: betinadavis
#28
Oooh! I can participate! Hours later, but have a novella!
So “strange”, “serious”, and actual “emergency” don’t often overlap, but I may have a few that work.
1) Caller says her crazy roommate is losing her s**t, has a knife, and is screaming and trying to break stuff in the house. Caller is locked in her bedroom with a surprisingly calm attitude, noting that roommate is nuts and this isn’t that unusual. Responders are pretty far out, so I stay on the phone. Suddenly, I hear loud banging, sounds of a verbal, tussling. I try to get my caller’s attention again, while noting what I can overhear in the call notes. Caller gets back on the line and says the roommate had cut up her own arms/hands, busted in my caller’s bedroom door, and smeared blood all over the caller. Then the roommate left to room to also call 911 so she could claim my caller had intentionally attacked her.
2) I was still training on phones. Call was already in for a check on welfare of an older woman who lived with her adult sons. The original caller said she hadn’t heard from the mother and the sons were known to be aggressive and even violent. I answer a call from the landline phone at the target address and it’s the mother, wondering where officers are because her sons are physically fighting. I remember being confused that she knew they were coming and wasn’t the original caller. She wasn’t forthcoming with information, gave very short answers to direct questions. When she asked if she could get off the phone, I asked her to just set the phone down with the line open and she obliged. After a bit, I hear the mother and a male voice arguing in the background, and mention of “blood”. More arguing, then a male voice picks up the phone and says “I just killed my brother in self defense”. He was surprisingly compliant and calmly told me what happened, with what weapon, where the weapon was now, his name, date of birth, etc. Still somewhat surprised I wasn’t called into court for that one.
3) It’s right at shift change and the incoming rotation is notorious for callouts and trudging in at the top of the hour. I’m standing up, just waiting for enough people to log in so I can leave. 911 is ringing, they have a few showing available, but not actually answering, so I sigh and pick up.
The male caller says that his roof has collapsed and, that he has acid burns, and that it is all over the floor. My agency uses specific questioning protocols for EMS and fire calls, so I launch into the program. We are not allowed to deviate from questioning until we get aaaaalllll the way through, with a few very specific exceptions. The caller is agitated and uncooperative, keeps asking what’s taking them so long, as many do – there’s often an apparent misconception that no one starts moving until all our questions are answered, which is not the case. His responses to the questions elicit a full HAZMAT response from fire and eventually prompts me to also send the call to EMS and law enforcement. I had already sent the call to LEO early on because of the caller’s evasiveness and just a general vibe. Protocol instructions have me tell the caller to leave his house, but he is refusing. He keeps saying the responders have to come to him. Meanwhile, all three agencies (law, fire, EMS) are all in the area, but they parked down the road because the guy says this place is structurally unsound and there are dangerous chemicals everywhere – they aren’t sending their people into that environment to create more victims I’d they can help it. The Sgt has me connect the caller to his cell phone to try and convince the guy to come out, but the caller is still belligerent, insisting they come to them, and repeatedly hangs up on the officer. Finally, an officer basically says “f**k it” and approaches the guy’s house. I’m finally off the phone, 20 minutes after I should have been done, and take my tired a*s home.
When I look at the call the next day, the short of it is that the dude was tripping balls. The caller was obviously agitated and pacing in front of the home when the officer walked up. When he saw the officer, the caller immediately approached him, trying to remove his clothing to show the officer the non-existent “acid burns”. The house was intact and had no structural damage. And that’s why answering 911 2 minutes before you get to leave is [🎶the woooooOoooorssstttttt 🎶](http://iruntheinternet.com/lulzdump/images/gifs/parks-and-recreation-Jean-Ralphio-the-worst-worst-woooorst-1372637673p.gif?id=)
More lighthearted//
4) Not my story, but a coworker – she had a male caller saying he was having s******l thoughts and wanted to jump into traffic. While coworker is trying to get more information from him as responders are on the way, he gets frustrated with her, stating that she’s distracting him and keeps making him miss the passing cars.
5) We had almost daily occurrences of callers reporting a man standing naked on the side of the road, mooning passing cars around 5am near the county line. It was so far away from our deputies’ normal down time spots, and consistently around shift change, so they consistently were unable to locate the man by the time someone got to the area. Dispatch nicknamed him the Brown-eyed Bandit.
6) Female caller very concerned about something suspicious, mentioning a body in large trunk or suitcase and an abandoned house, but was unable to clarify details and kept changing the story when i asked questions in attempt to get a better idea of wtf she was talking about. She was getting increasingly agitated as I tried to refocus her attention on statements she already made and asked clarifying questions. Finally, she gets so fed up with me asking questions that she says “can I talk to someone else, someone other than you? Is Detective Stabler there?”
I’m fairly new at the time, and we work in a facility separate from the agencies we work with, so I don’t know most of the officers by name. I give it serious thought for a second, thinking this may be someone on a different rotation. Then it hits me: “Are you talking about Detective Stabler from Law and Order??” *internally: ohhhhhhhhhh, this b***h is crazy.*
7) I don’t remember the context, but I was asking for descriptive information on a caller’s girlfriend of about a month.
Me: what’s her date of birth?
Caller: I don’t know, but I know she’s a scorpio
If you read all this, imaginary cookies for you! Please forgive errors, this kept me occupied for my last hour or so at work on my phone.
Image source: TinkerMonkeybuns
#29
The toughest ones for me involve kids. Any time a parent finds their child dead is especially tough. The single worst call I’ve ever taken though was a woman who was calling in that she was hearing weird noises in her house. While walking through her house she started screaming and told me there was someone in her house. There we a couple soft pops followed by a gargling sound. After the officers had cleared the house and found her, it finally came out during the investigation that her adult son had killed her while high and freaking out.
Gunshots don’t sound like you’d think on the phone, they’re rather soft. It’s an eerie sound, something so violent being so soft that if you aren’t paying attention you can miss it.
Image source: 4x49ers
#30
I DO actually work for a 911 center. The call that has stuck with me the most was a call for two un conscience toddler twin girls. The mom called frantically because both weren’t breathing. I stayed on the phone until help arrived but there wasn’t much we could do.
The full story (which we rarely get by the way) is that the family went to bed early in the morning. The twins woke up and got up about two hours before mom. The 8 year old took them to her bed and covered them with a blanket, causing them to both suffocate. The real disturbing part is that by the time the officers and paramedics got there, the mom had changed their clothes and rubbed baby oil on them to give them that “life-life look”. No criminal charges filed.
Edit: I work for a fairly large department, so there are a lot of stories. I don’t want to clog the comments, but it’s not unusual for a seasoned dispatcher to take calls of people dying on the phone, suicides on the phone, listening to violent crimes like robberies in progress. It’s the nature of the job. The only calls that really stick with me are the ones where children are hurt physically or mentally. Oh yea, and I heard a coworker take a call from a guy that was actively stabbing his girlfriend in the face. Ok, now that you’ve heard all this, go try to have a good day!
Image source: Thnblu9
#31
I had a woman call in who was hiding in her closet and told me her ex-boyfriend was breaking into her house. She told me that they had a violent history. I got her information and told her to do what she needed to do to stay safe and leave the line open no matter what. While officers were enroute I heard him come in through a window and start beating her. He heard sirens coming and took off. Luckily, since she left the line open I was able to let the officers know when he took off and they caught him near the apartment.
I think the worst part was the two minutes after he left, I sat there listening to the woman weeping and not being able to comfort her because she was too far away to hear me.
Image source: anon
#32
My stepdads a firefighter and he told this story to me and my sister about 5 years ago and it’s stuck with me.
As a firefighter he also attends car crashes to help cut people out, etc. The story he told us was that he was called to a lorry and car collision, which never end well really. In the car were three adults and one young girl about 6-7, if memory serves me right it was the family friend driving, with the others in the back with the little girl in the middle backseat.
They crashed into a lorry and the car went under it, decapitating all the adults but missing the girl. She had to sit in that car, surrounded by the decapitated bodies of her family and friend for around four hours before they could get her out.
He also told us about how when brains are splattered across the windscreen it reminds him of raw mince, I guess when you deal with that stuff a lot you grow kind of immune to it.
EDIT: Should clarify, a ‘lorry’ is the British term for truck. Like a 8 wheeler truck for transporting things.
Image source: toastedtoperfection
#33
It’s kinda strange but stuff that sounds the most dramatic – people getting severely beaten during a call, or being shot at, admitting to a murder they committed in the last 30 seconds or even people killing themselves while they are on the phone to me… that doesn’t bother me too much.
But give me a distressed elderly person and I get a lump in my throat. Combine that with any one of the above and it turns into a bit of a s**t shift. We’ve all got our triggers and sometimes the least spectacular stuff can be the hardest to deal with.
Image source: Quarterwit_85
#34
Got a call a few years ago, lady’s house was on fire, and her daughter was stuck in a back room. The flames were too much and too high, and she couldn’t get through them to get to the girl. So I got to sit on the phone and listen to A) a little girl burn to death and B) the mom scream and cry as she watched. It was 5 years ago and the sounds still haunts me.
Edit: I thought of a second one. Had a guy who called in reporting his son was unconscious and not breathing. He was as calm as could be about it, too. Said he left the room for just a second and when he came back he found him this way. But he wasn’t panicked, wasn’t worried, just talking like he was telling me about his day. Kept trying to get him to start CPR, and he treated it like a chore. Turns out, the kid started crying and the dad got frustrated and beat him to death. Kid was 2.
Image source: FreakInThePen
#35
Wow there’s a lot of love for us lately…
In another thread and an AMA that I did, I told my story of having to stay on the phone with a young man for about 40 minutes, maybe a little more, who had a very disturbed man break into his home, and with a loaded shotgun pointed at his face the entire time, demand that he call the police (he wanted a s*****e by cop).
I now realize that I didn’t get overly detailed about it in my other mentionings of it, but this young man urinated himself, almost threw up, and was begging me to keep him alive…I haven’t dreamt about it in a long time (it was several years ago), but it stuck with me.
Image source: Hunhund
#36
Another NYC – received an anonymous call that a Patrol Car (RMP) was parked in the middle of a street in Harlem with the doors open and no Police officer in sight. We used to get tons of prank calls but after a while your gut tells you when they’re real. They found the Officer several blocks away. He had been shot and then dragged by the perp’s car for several blocks. Terrible.
Image source: Mizcreant908
#37
We got a call from a woman having severe abdominal pains. Simple enough. We ask the normal questions, “are you feeling faint”, “are you vomiting blood”, stuff like that. Then we asked if it was traumatic or not.
“Well…”
She eventually tells us that she had a tampon stuck inside of her for more than 20 days, and she thinks that might be why she’s hurting.
———————————
Bonus story: I heard someone else (on a different thread) that had a funny story. This guy and his wife were playing around with various vegetables and the guy gets a carrot lodged up his… you know. So they tried to remove it so they wouldn’t have to call 911. She used a pair of burger tongs and grabbed onto something and pulled, but she was actually pulling at his intestines. Fun!
If you get something stuck, just call 911. I’ve heard it all before. I don’t care that you have a vegetable garden in there, I just want to get you help.
Image source: 911ChickenMan, freepik
#38
I’ve got one for ya. The obligatory “Not 911”, but it’ll tie together.
So, I worked for an alarm monitoring company, I get an inbound call in the middle of the night from somewhere in Philadelphia. Guy on the line sounds real out of it, drunk maybe? My first thought was it was someone calling in to cancel a false alarm, messed up voice was them waking from sleep, not uncommon.
Some alarms (heh) start going off in my head, the guy isn’t making a whole lot of sense, and it’s really hard to get basic information out of him. Eventually I piece together that he’s a gas station worker, and he’s been attacked. For some reason he dialed the alarm company instead of 911. We weren’t even his alarm company, there was probably an old sticker in the shop somewhere, so I’ve got no info on this guy. Mind you, we don’t have any magical reverse phone lookup system, and our systems are locked down such that we can’t access a web browser. (Genius, I know) Pulled out my phone (also not allowed) managed to look up a gas station with the inbound number in Philly, called 911 and got police and medical out there.
No idea how it ultimately shook out. Stayed on the line keeping the guy conscious and talking until they got there, then disconnected.
Image source: xiroian
#39
Heard this one the other day. Not from the perspective of an operator but close…
EMS responds to a call where a man reported having MULTIPLE potatoes stuck up his bum.
Not red potatoes, those big brown suckers.
The kicker: “I was washing my potatoes in the shower when I slipped and fell and all the potatoes went up there”
O_O wut?
Image source: HonestWill, benzoix
#40
My father used to be a cop and during training they listened two funny calls for some relief. One of the best ones was of a guy that called in a wreck he had with a deer ( male) this was a while back so he was in a phone booth when he start d screaming. The stag was only unconscious and had started attacking the phone booth was in it.
#41
Posted this before, but the first call I took was from a blind elderly male. He called because he had found his son on the floor of a bedroom. He was not responding so I had him tilt his head back and listen for a breath…nothing. He said he was warm and he had talked with him less than twenty minutes prior so I guided him through CPR. Compressions only because of the circumstances. He lived in a rural part of our county and we were low on rigs so we did this for about twelve minutes before help arrived on scene. EMS goes inside and immediately ask for PD. This isn’t unusual, sometimes loved ones can’t or don’t want to believe that it’s too late so we go through the motions until a trained eye is there. PD gets there and asks for a detective. This is also not unusual for younger deaths. Two hours later and still there it peaks my curiosity. I called the first officer that arrived and found out that the poor man had been doing CPR on his now mostly headless son. He had been taking a nap and his son committed s*****e with a shotgun. It woke him up but not quick enough for it to register as a gunshot. When I had asked him to tilt his head back he did so by using his chin which was still there. I think it worked out for the best because he had support there when he learned the truth and it didn’t make my job any tougher but it definitely made for an usual start to my dispatch career.
Image source: Shaggs13
#42
I was told about one where a teenager had climbed into one of those baby swings at the park and gotten stuck. He had to be cut out of it by firefighters.
Image source: anon
#43
I once dispatched a helicopter for a woman gored by a reindeer. Apparently there is a reindeer farm for tourists and she tried to kiss it. My pilot and flight crew laughed at the MOI and asked three times to repeat.
Image source: stanislawa
#44
Not an operator (though, I want to be now). This us a 911 call on me made by my bf in our small hometown.
I have a rare disease called Fibrous Dysplasia/Mcune Albright Syndrome. FD is where some places on one or more of your bones is replaced with fibrous tissue. This makes them bend, break, and deform easily. I have it in multiple vital bones of my body.
Well, this leads to the one fateful night actually exactly one year ago tonight where my bf has to call 911. He says, “We need an ambulance!”. She asks what for to which he responds “my girlfriend has FD and her legs broke.”.
Her: “Was there an accident? Did she fall?”.
Him: “No. She was walking.” *getting a bit annoyed.*
Her: *Unbelieving despite my continuous screaming in the background* “What makes you think they’re broken? What happened?”
Him: *just done* “Just.. Her legs are weak and they broke. Send an ambulance!”.
Her: “okay, sir. I’m sending help. But, did she hit something? Did she fall on something wrong? How do you know they’re broken?”
Him: *Gets right up by me while I’m screaming* “Her legs are broken!” *Click*
The ambulance that showed up wasn’t even fully prepared. I guess they really did have a hard time believing that someone’s legs could just break on them while walking. They had to tear up a box we had laying nearby to stabilize it as much as possible. And they had to lift me to the stretcher thing in a sheet with the help of the firemen. That was absolutely excruciating with a broken left tibia, broken left fibula, and broken and completely displace righr femur (the WORST). No meds until they got me to the plane to flight me to the hospital in the nearest city.
Lesson to operators: sometimes people aren’t jusy crazy. Sometime bones really do just break.
Image source: HerRoyalSquirrelness
#45
Got a call from some girl saying, “someone stole my car!”. I ask if she saw what direction they went. She says they’re heading down the street and starts telling me the stores they’re passing. I ask if she’s following them. She says that she is in the car. I freak the f**k out. She then says to whoever is driving, “babe, slow down this is crazy.” Turns out she and her boyfriend were arguing, he started driving crazy since he was mad and she decided to call it in as a stolen vehicle.
Another story. We get a call that there’s two loose dogs running around a major street. About 30 seconds later an officer comes over the radio to tell me that they just hit two dogs on the street. Same dogs. That’s just a couple of minor stories I could think of. I’ll post more as I think of them. 911 operators should have a million crazy stories. I only did it for four months.
Image source: Elbiotcho
#46
Not a 911 operator, but was in the vicinity. My best friend ( we will call D) and I walked in his parents house, expecting to find his girlfriend (let’s call her K) on the couch or the bed, where we were all gonna smoke a joint, chill and i was gonna crash on the couch. On that exact same couch was K, skin mostly pale, lips blue and a foam like substance , a half empty syringe beside her and a dinner plate with a then unknown powder on the coffee table in front of her.
D freaks out, smacking her face, lying her on her side and deperately trying to get her to wake up. I don’t care if they arrested all of us at this point and call 911. As I am talking to the 911 operator D cries “she’s got a pulse man… I think” and began hugging her, sobbing harder than Jesus “please, please K, please wake up baby”… his parents ended up coming downstairs, his mom freaked out and was crying, as his Dad seen the plate and began screaming about d***s being in the house….it got bad. I walked outside to finish the call before I broke down. It was soul crushing to watch.
Turns out K was still alive, pulse was 35, very close to total cardiac arrest. The powder was fentanyl, no one was arrested. there’s a law in my state that if EMTs are called and not police, the suspect cannot legally be charged with any d***s found at the location. They kept her for two days giving her narcan all throughout the first night.
She went to rehab, and now she is with another classmate, happily married and with two children. D…..well not so well, but that’s for another time.
Image source: Sexstarvedpeepingtom
#47
Not a dispatcher but my mom is, when I was a kid probably about 6 or 7, my mom was at work and my dad was busy doing something on the house so I called 911 because that’s where my mom work to come home and make me some food. Luckily enough she was the one that answered the call. Her and my father were not happy at all.
Image source: J_walsty
#48
It was my call to 911 but something tells me they’ve relayed this story from their perspective a few times.
I got hit from behind by one of my 220-pound Suffolk ram sheep. Never saw it coming. Knocked the snot out of me. Barely escaped as he was trying to finish me off. Once outside the fence, I went into shock as all the adrenaline drained. Had to call 911. Overheard the EMT in the ambulance trying to clarify to the E.R. that the patient they were transporting was NOT a victim of pedestrian vs truck. The hospital thought I’d been hit by a Dodge Ram pickup.
Image source: enilnolarivogottogi
#49
1979 NYC. Got a call from a crying child – a little boy – saying his mom and dad were fighting and his dad said he was going to throw the mom out of the window. I could hear a terrible fight going on in the background – woman screaming, things breaking, man yelling, etc. The poor kid didn’t know his address. We didn’t have the technology for call ID and would have to use reverse telephone books. A trace would take forever. Anyway while I’m trying to get the address I hear a horrific scream and glass breaking. A few seconds later the other operators in the room are getting calls about a woman lying in the courtyard who came out of a window. Very sad. Worst of all is that I am sure someone else in this apartment building must have heard this fight but no one called for help until it was too late. Poor kid. Working 911 in NYC during the 70s/80s was a nightmare. The City had a very high crime rate and s**t technology.
Image source: Mizcreant908
#50
I was a 911 Operator in Mobile, AL the day Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast. We started getting lots of calls from New Orleans and the Mississippi Gulf Coast for some reason. I guess they started routing to us after all the 911 centers to the west of us started going down. Anyways, I got a call from a woman who said she was trapped in her house on Gordon Street between Florida and Law. I was confused at first because we have a Florida Street in Mobile, and after checking and double checking and not being able to find her address I asked her what city she was calling from and she said “Im in New Orleans”.
I tried to route her to New Orleans 911 and New Orleans Fire Department but could not get through. She started screaming and said the water was coming up into the attic where she was. I told her to find something heavy and break the attic vent out so she could get out on to her roof, but the vent was too small for her to crawl through. She sat down and started crying. I told her I would stay on the line with her for as long as she wanted me to. I stayed on the line and listened as she cried, prayed, cussed, and prayed some more. A little while later I could hear her struggling to keep her head and phone above water, then the phone went dead. To this day I don’t know if she lived or died. I quit 911 three months after Katrina.
Edit: I was a 911 Operator for 9 years before Katrina hit.
Edit2: I got involved in 911 after doing some ride along’s with the Police Department the summer before my Junior year of high school. I started running the radio part time on the weekends and during the summer when I was out of school and moved into a full-time position after High School when a job opened up. It’s not illegal for someone under the age of 18 to work at a 911 center, but I wasn’t allowed to actually answer 911 calls without an APCO certified operator on the console with me until I was full-time and certified. It was also illegal for me to run the NCIC computer without being certified to do so, which I couldn’t get certified to do until I was 18. I ran the EMS/Fire Dispatch console for the county when I was part-time, and got my certifications when I graduated. I was also a volunteer firefighter/EMR during this time as well (also, not illegal and quite common in rural parts of Mississippi). And thanks for the Gold whoever you are. Although I don’t feel right accepting a reward for something I did as part of my job 8 years ago, it is still appreciated.
Image source: anon
#51
Throwaway as my place REALLY doesn’t like us talking about work outside of work.
Had a call for a brother who killed his other brother with a hammer (the pick part) while the victim’s little daughter was watching. The daughter called us from another room and told us her daddy’s eye fell out.
Perp was apprehended, daughter taken by relative. Had to smoke after that one, and I don’t even smoke.
Image source: rainbowbrite0091
#52
In true Reddit style, I’m not quite the intended target of this question as I don’t actually answer the calls myself… But my job does involve me listening to a lot of them after they’ve happened…
The one that sticks with me the most was a man who was paralysed from the waist down and had phoned up to tell us that he was mid-way through attempting to amputate his own legs at the thigh using nothing but a hack-saw and a Stanley knife.
He’d laid newspaper down on the floor and everything, in an attempt not to get blood on the carpet.
Naturally not long into the call he passed out due to blood loss… Grim stuff.
Image source: Ahgwg
#53
Two Christmases ago my uncle (who’s a police officer) was working during the day. He got to work when they got a call from an elderly woman who was having a heart attack and gave him the address. Turns out it was his own mother. He got there and tried CPR before the EMTs got there but there was nothing they could do.
Image source: anon
#54
As a 911 dispatcher, PLEASE READ THE FOLLOWING; This question is GREAT on Reddit, and even in a personal question with a close friend. But please, please, PLEASE…. do not ask this question in public, and especially at any social format. Many of us dispatchers have VERY difficult calls that can linger with us for years. It can be hard to talk about, and in front of a group / gathering, it can induce anxiety. Just bear that in mind. Thanks!
Image source: BeardsuptheWazoo
#55
Nope. I plan on having a good day today. Not gonna read any of these.
Image source: AscendantJustice
#56
I was also working the night John Lennon was killed. Call came in as a male shot ifo Dakota. When we learned from dispatch that it was John Lennon the whole floor (200+ people) just went silent. The Beatles were the first album I owned. For me, it was the end of something so ethereal I can’t even name it – possibly the ideal that we might be able to change the world for the better.
Image source: Mizcreant908
#57
Not a 911 operator but my aunt is. The call she hate the most was trying to coach a new mother to give CPR to a 5 week old, that died while she was still on the line before paramedics could get there.
Image source: splitatk
#58
I once took a call from a kidnapping victim who jumped out of a moving car in an office park. She had no idea where she was and I couldn’t get a valid location on her cell phone (this was in 2004), only the nearest cell tower. Usually I would ask a caller in her situation to start looking in mailboxes for mail with an address on the envelope. But this was an office park with mail slots that she couldn’t access.
She was literally running for her life while I was on the phone with her, hiding behind dumpsters and bushes while the kidnappers patrolled the office park. The terror in her voice was gut wrenching. She had already been beaten, and she was afraid that if they found her they would k**l her.
After about five minutes of this terrifying call, she was finally able to find a business sign on one of the windows in the complex. I frantically searched for the business address and the radio dispatcher aired the location to which at least a dozen officers responded. They found the suspect vehicle pretty quickly and a short foot chase ensued – K9 officer ended that in no time. The first officer to reach the caller ordered a victim’s advocate because of the condition she was in. I had to take a few minutes off after that call.
Image source: Crux1836
#59
My grandmother was a fire dispatcher a long long time ago since she passed away in the early 90s. So this likely pre-dates 911 service.
She told me a story about a call that she received from a parent who’s house was on fire. Neither parent had gotten their child out of the house and she was pleading her to get the fire dept there quickly since the fire was too bad to go back in. Suffice to say the child did not make it.
I can’t even imagine the guilt that the couple had and the blame that they shared or even blaming each other for not grabbing their child.
Image source: Porkpants81
#60
My mom was a 911 dispatcher in the early 90’s (I was 5 years old-ish) in Washington State. When I got older, I remember asking her about some of the calls that she could still recall. One in particular was pretty bad.
She was working one year on Halloween night and around 10 or 11pm she had a call come in that a couple guys were driving around town with a dummy or something dragging behind their truck. The dummy was falling apart and pieces of clothing/plastic were being torn off and scattered around the city. Being Halloween, it seemed like a prank but she had a patrol car try to find and stop the truck. As time goes by more and more people started to call in about it. Eventually the patrol car caught up with the truck and it turns out that it was a person. The guys had gone to a store earlier and when they left, they had backed their truck into an elderly man who’s clothes got caught in the rear bumper or whatnot. The two guys never even knew that they were dragging around another human being all across town, for miles. The elderly man had passed away and those pieces of clothing scattered around town, was his clothing, flesh, and body parts. Still gives me chills.
Image source: Turkeyshoes
#61
There was a young boy about 3 trapped in his parents trailer that was on fire. We knew he was in there, the grandmother had gotten all the kids out but that one. She thought maybe he went and hid or something. The fire department did everything they could even at great personal risk but in the end the child had died of smoke inhalation. It was a painful 1-2 hours as they fought the fire and tried to save him, though after the first half hour we were pretty sure he couldn’t have survived. My son was about the same age as that boy and it hit me hard, I probably should have gotten grief counseling or something but they didn’t do that for dispatchers at the time.
Image source: anon
#62
I was a criminal justice major in college and as one of my summer jobs/internships I was a non-emergency dispatcher at a 911 center. I was surprised about the number of emergency calls I got on the “non-emergency” lines. a couple of examples: an old guy mad at the minority kids playing in the street in front of his house threatened to go outside with his shotgun and confront their mom because the police were taking to long to come answer his complaint.
A lady called saying she found a guy passed out in her driveway and wanted to know if she should ignore it or if we should send an ambulance. we sent an ambulance.
the one that sticks with me though is an elderly lady calling saying that her grandson and husband were burning trash in the backyard and something exploded and her husband was on fire. her grandson was 8-9 years old and couldn’t do anything about it. when the fire dept got there, they said his skin was like melted plastic and as soon as they tried to get him on the backboard, it came off exposing all his organs, etc. he died enroute to the hospital. Grandson watched everything.
Image source: Squidssential
#63
Ex-GF’s mom is a operator:
Call early Sunday morning from a 6 year old girl saying there was a man in the backyard making a lot of noise. She said the man had her parents and they both weren’t moving. The little girl said the man knew she was in the house and he told her to call the police. She then said the man was coming inside. The phone fell to floor/ground and that was the end of the call.
Still gives me the chills. Lots of un-answered questions.
Image source: gooncraw
#64
When I still lived in my hometown, I used to volunteer on the Emergency Services Department. Being a tiny town, there was no full time staff, so people in the town would receive proper training and volunteer for it. Two incidents always stuck with me.
One was a day when I was setting up for a CPR training course for teens. The station was silent as I was working, until almost every alarm suddenly started going off. Fire, EMS, I could hear the RCMP alarm going off across the street. The radio starts buzzing, and I can dear a Delta call come in for a house nearby. (Delta being the second highest level)
I knew the family, kind people. Mom had been downstairs making dinner, and her son was getting ready to go to Scouts. He had tripped, and hung himself by the kerchief…
She didn’t find him until it was too late. I remember standing in front of the radio in horror as I could hear her screaming in the background of a radio call, as one of the guys was radioing in that they were coming into the big city with a high priority call.
My father is on both Fire and EMS, and was there. He said that all he could think the entire time was “We left muddy footprints on their clean carpet”. He called my mom in tears, asking her to hurry by and to vacuum it up before the family got home..
The other is *less* tragic, and more just nerve-wracking. Was driving in from school one day, radio goes off. I hear the words “We have a potential Echo level call, prepare for potential evacuations, west side.”
It was November, and usually there would be a thick blanket of snow. So far, there was none. Someone, in their infinite stupidity, had thrown a lit cigarette butt out of their car window into a nearby ditch.
Nothing but farm fields for *miles* outside our town, and all of it was on fire. It took the fire departments of three towns, and some pretty amazing bravery to get that fire under control. It took two days, and by the end of it, two farmsteads had burnt down, and our town was under threat of evacuation for the whole time.
Image source: TheNaiveMask
#65
I answered a call from a guy who was screaming about how the relative of his that he found outside was bleeding from the head and was laying on the ground. It was a call that was way out there in the boondocks so I was going to be on the line with this guy for a while. It wasn’t helping that he was freaking out and yelling at me nearly the entire time. When I was going through questions with him about the patient’s condition he was yelling, “HE’S BLEEDIN’ FROM THE HEAD! SEND HELP!” We already had an ambulance and police and fire on the way. Suddenly during the assessment he yells, “HE’S NOT BREATHING!!” At that point I do my best to calm him down and guide him through CPR instructions. He did a very good job and the patient started breathing again after about 300 compressions. Once that happened I immediately went to the control bleeding protocol and asked him to get a dry, clean towel or cloth and to apply it to the wound on his head. The guy would not do it. At this point he was an emotional wreck and didn’t want to leave him no matter how much I tried to talk to and reason with him. I was practically begging the guy to go get something to control the bleeding. He kept saying over and over that he didn’t want to leave him. After a while the police showed up on scene first. I asked him if they were there and he said yes. Just before I was about to hang up and let them talk to him I heard a police officer say, “Sir, I need you step away from that gun on the ground…”
That call gave me chills.
Edit: the guy that was found bleeding from the head shot himself.
Image source: ARatherOddOne
#66
I work as a 911 operator/dispatcher in Florida. Last week I took a call from a woman who sounded pretty scared, whispering in to the phone, who said that there was somebody breaking in to her house. This isn’t the first time this type of call has come in, but it’s always been a friend or a relative coming over unannounced or a mentally unstable caller thinking that a plant on a table wrapped behind a window curtain is a burglar (true story). As such, I was gathering information but not yet convinced that it was a legit burglary.
A minute in to the call, the woman says she hears a gunshot in the background. I don’t hear anything, but note on the screen that per the caller shots have been fired. Just then I hear something close enough to the phone that it sounds like it’s coming from the next room over… *pop pop pop.. pop.. pop*. Obvious gunshots. At this point it hits me that, yeah, this is actually happening and this was either a home invasion or somebody is defending their home with force. I quickly ended the call and passed the caller to the sheriff’s office for their portion of the interrogation.
Hours later, a hospital in a neighboring county called and asked if we were looking for any gunshot victims. They had a drive-up without any good explanation for how it happened, and it happened to be one of our burglars. It had been a relative of my caller who came across the burglars in the house and opened fire on them, hitting one before they took off.
Image source: jumalaw
#67
Call received from mother of a female in her 20s stating a former customer, male 60s, was on his way to her house.
Male was jealous of females boyfriend and was coming there to confront her.
Male arrives, breaks through front door, all but two occupants flee out back door. Two occupants lock themselves in a bedroom.
Male shoots through the door, kills boyfriend. Female’s uncle comes in and hits the male in the head with frying pan.
Police arrive and arrest jealous former customer for murder.
Image source: Dintimid8or
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