It’s been a while since I posted a fun 9-1-1 call. Tonight I got one though that made me laugh.
A guy calls 9-1-1 from his cell phone because his girlfriend hit him and was pulling on his already broken arm. I get his address. I get the girls name, her description and generally what happened. During the call, they start to argue and shout and the phone disconnects.
About 15 seconds later, I get another 9-1-1 call from the same cell phone. This time it’s the girlfriend. The conversation goes something like this…
Me: 9-1-1. This is Scott.
Girl: This is (girlfriend) at (address). The call you just got about the domestic is a prank call.
Me: Ok. What is your boyfriend’s name?
Girl: I don’t have a boyfriend.
Me: Ok then, who is the guy with the broken arm who just called me?
Girl: I don’t know anyone…uh…I don’t know what you’re talking about.
Me: Well then, who’s phone are you using?
Girl: …… *click*
I call the number back and talk to the guy. After hanging up the phone she booked it out the door. Stupid lady.
- I get to help people.
- Sometimes, when police officers come into dispatch to get paperwork I throw stuff at them….just cuz I can.
- I get to serve and protect those that serve and protect.
- When my job is entertaining, it’s REALLY entertaining.
- When my job is boring, I seek comfort in the fact that it’s boring because people aren’t requesting help.
- My co-workers all have a twisted sense of humor whether they want to or not.
- I get to help catch bad guys.
- I get to be the disembodied voice of a police department.
- I get to hear stories about sloppy drunks, strange injuries and grotesque deaths but I don’t have to see or smell these things.
- The public knows that help is just a 9-1-1 call away. Police officers and firefighters know that help is just a radio transmission away. They know this because dispatchers and operators across the county have earned this reputation. I get to live up to this expectation everyday I go to work.
April 11-17, 2010 is National Public Safety Telecommunicators Week. If you’re a 9-1-1 operator, a police dispatcher, a fire dispatcher, etc., then thank you for what you do every day!
One of the worst things about working the night shift is planning your sleep. On most days, I sleep in the morning, right after I get off work and get Ashlynn to school. Other days, I may have to stay up and sleep later in the day. On my transition days (days where I switch from being a normal night-sleeping person into a batty nocturnal person and vice versa), I usually have to fit a nap sometime during the day. When it works, it’s great!
But when it doesn’t work, it’s oh-so-bad. Being unable to sleep is harder on us night shift workers than it is for the rest of you folks. We do the same thing you do when you can’t sleep. We toss and turn. Watch something crappy on TV in hopes it lulls our brains to sleep. We eat crappy food which bothers our stomachs and keeps us awake longer. But we also have to deal with what I like to call night-shift insomnia guilt or I-have-something-better-to-be-doing-isis.
What is night-shift insomnia guilt or I-have-something-better-to-be-doing-isis?
See when you normal people can’t sleep and it’s 2:30 in the morning there’s nothing else you can do. Your goal at 2:30 am, the goal that you are spectacularly failing to achieve, is to be asleep. This is what is expected in normal people land. 2:30 am is not the time to clean your house, mow your lawn or run errands. While you may do some of these things anyway, you don’t feel guilty about not getting them done.
Now imagine it’s 2:30 pm and you can’t sleep. The sun is out, the grass is long, the kitchen is a mess and you’ve been laying there for 2 hours trying to sleep. 2:30 pm IS a great time to clean your house, mow your lawn and run errands in normal people land. It’s also a great time to work out, go for a hike, kick a puppy or hang out with a friend. While I don’t operate by all the rules of normal people land, I still like to feel like I belong so I end up feeling guilty. “Why am I laying here when I could be doing something better with my time?”, “I should’ve tried to nap some other time so I could be getting something productive done now.” These are the thoughts that run through my head while I try to hide from the sunlight.
This happens a lot to us night-shift-types. I wish I knew how to fix it, but I don’t know how. Oh, and I was kidding about kicking puppies. I was just curious if you were still paying attention.
“Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I’m not sure about the universe.” – Albert Einstien
Before I tell you about this call I just dispatched, I want to warn you of a couple things….
- This story is true. I wish I could make up stuff this good, but the world is far more crafty than I am.
- Do NOT attempt to figure out the logic of this call. Just sit back and enjoy the ridiculous-ness of it. Attempting to put logic into the situation will only make your brain hurt in odd ways. It kinda feels like brain freeze without the comfort of the cold, stabby pain. I cannot stress this enough.
Just after 5:30 a.m. on Sunday morning a woman calls the police to talk about a burglary that occurred at the house next to her. After approximately 10 minutes of following a circular cycle of paranoia, stupidity and I-watch-too-much-crime-drama-ness, here is what we came up with:
- About 2 weeks ago, the vacant house next to her was burglarized. (This turns out to be true, a report was already taken by the realtor who is trying to sell the house.)
- Since then, she has found 2 dead birds and a dead squirrel in her yard.
This leads our caller to conclude one thing: The realtor burglarized the vacant house and is killing small animals and tossing them in the caller’s yard because they burglarized the house that they’re trying to sell.
VOIP phones are strange creatures to the phone system. Most people use VOIP phones as land-lines. The phone is plugged into a home computer or home network which is connected to the internet. For most VOIP users, there is no difference between their cool new internet-connected phone and their old land-line phone. For the 9-1-1 system, the difference is huge!
Land-lines are connected to a strictly controlled MSAG database. It’s 99% accurate and we almost definitely know where a land-line call is coming from. VOIP phones do not use the MSAG database. Emergency address information for VOIP phones are usually entered and updated by the subscriber. For example:
A guy in San Diego, California gets a VOIP phone. In order for 9-1-1 to work on his cool, new phone, he needs to give his address to the VOIP company or enter it into the VOIP program. One day, guy moves to Dallas, Texas. During all the hustle of moving, guy doesn’t update his emergency information for his VOIP phone. One day he has to call 9-1-1. Since he didn’t change his information his 9-1-1 call in Dallas gets routed to San Diego!
When The Dispatcher Answers the Phone…
This is the information we receive:
- Phone number that is placing the call
- Class of phone (VOIP)
- Subscriber name
- Address (This is the address given by the subscriber.)
- VOIP Company
This is what we see on our map:
If you’ve been following my posts in the last week, this image should look familiar. It looks exactly like a land-line call!
Conclusion
As with all emergency calls, the dispatcher is going to ask you to verify your location. Land-line calls have a small probability of sending the wrong information. Cell phones can have some problems sending the right information for a caller. However, VOIP is the one technology that can cause the biggest location mistakes. People who use VOIP in place of land-lines need to make sure their emergency information is accurate before they need to call 9-1-1.
Resources
Scott Pantall | April 25, 2010
