911- Hold, please

I had reason to call 911 this afternoon, for something that thankfully wasn't life threatening - but help was needed none the less. After ringing for a while, an automated system answered. The system asked me a series of questions and wanted me to either push 1 or say "one" for the first option, and so on. When I did, the system put me on hold. I finally hung up when someone else got through a little quicker. God forbid someone have a dire emergency and are unable to answer or push the right button.

Thanks for listening/reading.

I felt your same frustration a little while back when dialing 911 after ESCAPING A BANK ROBBERY!!! only to find out that if you call 911 from your cell you get transfered to the California Highway Patrol and put on hold. So let that be a lesson - IF YOU HAVE TO CALL FROM A CELL CALL SOMEONE NEAR A LANDLINE TO CALL 911 FOR YOU FIRST AND THEN TRY YOURSELF!

Glad to hear your situation ended fine, at least it sounded as if it did.

Heh, that happened to my dad once when I was in the car with him. It wasn't a *serious* emergency (a bull in the middle of a busy 4-lane road blocking traffic) but still, calling 911 and getting put on hold is pathetic.

"Please hold as you're being beaten to death. We care about your call."

Popular, are you serious? There's a $4 a month 911-service charge on my cell phone bill and it doesn't even go to 911?!

---

On occasion there are situations where the people involved may not be in a position to handle an injury or incident. Is there someone else we should have called? Other than my Mom, who told me to call 911.

When I was on vacation in Venice a girl stumbled over someone else in her Inline Skates and couldn't move and I called 911, but I was on hold for like 15 min...

It's not any better here in Germany though. An American friend of mine called 110 here (the equivalent) and asked "Sprechen sie Englisch", do you speak English? and they just jung up on her!!!!! And EVERYBODY here speaks English!

No harm No foul, Elphaba.

Yeah, I read that story about the little boy who was ignored and ended up watching his Mother die. Beyond heartbreaking.

The thought went through my head while I was on hold - what if a young child is trying to get through, and then is asked a bunch of automated questions. The poor kid isn't going to know what to do.

Also, don't mean to bag on 911 operators. I can only imagine how hard/tense of a job it can be.

my dad's a volunteer firefighter and emt, so we have both a fire and police scanner and you should hear some of the stuff people call 911 for. what sucks the most about it, is that you're taking up town resources for your paper cut... while the medical truck is out putting a bandaid on your finger, someone in a car accident who really needs the help has to wait.

there are non life threatening things that warrent a 911 call though. in this town, if your basement is flooded with more than 3 inches of water, the only way to get it taken care of is to call 911 to get the fire depertment. after it rains alot, we can sometimes get 20 of those calls a day.

---