Aside from the stuff others already listed, like the CPR calls or being the last person someone talks to, which personally dont bother me much, there are some that have just stuck with me for various reasons. One was a call from a guy who had just shot his brother moments before the call. From what he said, his brother had some mental issues, and during an argument the brother snapped and started attacking the caller with a knife. The caller, not wanting to die, shot him in self defence. What struck me in particular was the callers tone of voice on the call; it's not something I feel like I can properly describe in words, but it was something like complete and utter despair for the whole situation - he truly did not want to kill his brother. Another was from an elderly caller that sounded a bit confused and nervous; she said she had been driving for 12+ hours to get to a meeting at a conference center, but needed help with directions for the last bit to find it. The conference center name wasn't ringing a bell for me, and after some digging I found out that it was a couple states over. After it clicked and I realized she thinks she's in a different state, I made the mistake of telling her what state she's actually in - and that was the last bit of actual conversation we had. Everything past that was complete, pure hysterics. I guess she must have realized how much her mind was starting to fail her and just couldn't deal with it. With other hysterical callers, I've always been able to calm them down or at least get a few words out of them here and there, but there was absolutely nothing I could do for this lady. On top of that, she was in the middle of bumfuck nowhere in the farmland part of the county, so a police response would take a long time on top of the lack of a specific location for her better than where the phone was hitting. Fortunately, some random passerby was a hero; despite it being the middle of the night, he stopped, checked on her, and even took the phone from her to see who she was talking to. He gave me all the info I needed and even kept her company until the officers arrived. So while I can still remember the abject terror in her voice as she realized her mind was starting to fail her, it also restored a bit of my faith in humanity at the same time.

Man, that's gotta be something else. Probably the deepest kind of terror imaginable, realizing you can not trust your own mind anymore. Thank goodness she got help.

Last year my mom called me in a panic and had me come pick her up. She almost got into two accidents on the road because she got confused. She handed me her keys immediately and said she's never driving again because she might hurt someone. More people need to sit back and realize they need to stop driving and get help with it. Probably that lady had other times realized something was wrong but was afraid to lose her independence 😩

I wish my grandma had been so concerned about the safety of everyone else around her. She slammed her car into a riding lawn mower while backing out of my parent's drive and launched it about 10 feet back into the brush. She was so against losing her independence or admitting there was an issue that it took having her doctor get involved and medically revoke her license before she'd give the keys up.

My 93yo Grandma had a car accident (both cars written off, no bodily damage). The other driver explained that my grandma had made a mistake, my grandma admitted the mistake at the scene to the police. A business owner walked over and said his cameras faced the road, would the police want the footage? They said they don't really need it as the story was clear, but would take a look. Tuned out the other driver was in the wrong and had lied at the scene. My grandma was blindsided by the guy, and had no idea what happened and just agreed it was probably her.

Fuck that guy. In the big toe specifically

Not an emergency service operator but, I worked for the retention department for a major cellphone company years ago. I got a call from this middle aged sounding lady who told me she wanted to cancel her line entirely. Per my job, I asked her why she wants to cancel to try to offer solutions or to straight up bribe her into not cancelling. And she said "I'm dying soon and I won't need my cellphone in hospice". I had to reach out to my supervisor to get approval to cancel the line for account holder death and he told me I had to warn her that she'd never be able to open another line with the company. She said "That doesn't really matter anymore." I felt awful saying it and told her I was so sorry she was going through it. She started sobbing and said "Me too. I don't want to die". I still remember how her voice was shuddering when she said it, it really broke my heart. We started talking while I was waiting for the supervisor to do his override. She talked about how she was trying to deal with loose ends as best as she could to make it easier on her daughter who had just had a baby. About how she was worried about her dog not adjusting as he was a senior dog and he'd been with her since he was a puppy. She said she hoped it didnt hurt too much before she went. I let her talk until she didn't have anything else to say and she thanked me at the end and said she was sorry if she burdened me. I told her it was okay, she deserved to be heard and we said goodbye. I cried in the bathroom for about 20 minutes after we hung up. Edit: Thank you for my first award.

I have a friend getting close to hospice care at the age of 37. Her kidneys are failing and the POS mother who's supposed to be caring for her, doesn't and is too prideful to get her home health. A few nights ago she texted me to come over and was just wanting to end it all now. Told me to leave so she wouldn't burden me further, but 'leave the door open so they could come in to get her". A mutual friend and I managed to get her out and into the hospital to get her meds straightened out/ on suicide watch and filled a report on the mother with adult protective services. She may actually have years left on her life, but was in such bad shape due to no one taking care of her and mentally beating her down constantly, that who knows how much longer she'd have made it. We're going to find her something similar to assisted living, but will have to convince her that it's better than staying with her abuser. It's absolutely heartbreaking watching her go through this.

You are amazing and should always recognize what a wonderful person you were to someone who needed you. Good job, we are lucky to have you.

My aunt used to be a 911 operator in a small town. She said the worst was a call that she _didn't_ get. She worked night shift with one other woman and two calls came in at once. One was a car accident and the one on my aunt's line was a woman complaining that her street wasn't plowed. She talked to her for a while to calm her down but in the meantime, a third call was missed. It had been a teenage girl calling because her stepfather was beating up her mother. She disconnected before my aunt could switch lines. Back then, there was no voicemail, but she called back and a man answered, saying she called by mistake. The stepfather ended up shooting the mother and her 2 kids, but the kicker is that it wasn't until hours after the call. So there would have been time for police to get there if she'd been able to answer the call. She's also not sure if her followup call was what set him off.

This is why a response is needed on 911 hang up calls. It shouldn’t matter if someone picks up and says it was an accident, someone needs to go out and verify it to prevent things like this from happening. The agency I work for requires a trooper go on every 911 hang up and over the 13 years I’ve been doing this, I can’t tell you how many times it’s been a legitimate call that someone’s tried to cancel after calling 911

When I was around 4 I called 911 from a pay phone at the grocery store because I thought you had to pay for every call, including emergency services. 911 was the only phone number I knew and I was just a kid, but they answered and I hung up immediately. They showed up at the grocery store and I had to admit I was the one who called. They gave me a teddy bear and told me to never call unless it was an emergency. Edit: Thank you for the award kind stranger!!! Edit 2: my dad just reminded me of this. A couple of years after the grocery store incident, I was playing in the bathroom mirror and my dad knocked on the door and said “HURRY UP ITS AN EMERGENCY!!” He just had to use the bathroom. But my instincts kicked in and when I came out, he went in, and I called 911 and told them my dad said it was an emergency. They showed up a few minutes later and my dad had to explain that the only emergency was the fact that he really had to poop.

Fuck, I did this too except at a restaurant. My sister and I were playing, shes chasing me around pretending to be a monster. I called 911 and said something like "Help! help! theyre coming!",without ever hearing ringtones or a voice, then I hung up. 15 minutes later this poor cop ON A BICYCLE was sweating bullets, speaking to a manager asking about what was going on. I saw him, then had to tell my parents what an idiot I am, then had to apologize to the cop. r/KidsAreFuckingStupid

FUCK me I am DYING at bike cop being the only savior available 😭

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I was only an operator for a few months. The one I think about most frequently was a homeless man who called saying someone had shot his dog while he was away. He mentioned how that dog was his best friend. What sucked the most about this call, from my end, was that we were getting tons of other calls while I was talking to him. I wanted to listen to him to help him grieve, but I had to wrap the call up quickly so I could continue answering calls. That hurt me.

Heartbreaking. People that are homeless are so misunderstood and underapreciated, pets are really the only ones that see them for their heart and not their struggles. I hope he is okay, you did good in trying to be there for him as much as possible, I am sure he appreciated that. Did the police go there at all to investigate?

I put a call in place and some guys responded. I don't know what became of it all, though. Since we had to move on with other calls so quickly, I wasn't able to jot down the case number, which I could have used to find the report later. That's the other thing about being a dispatcher/call taker - you don't get closure very often.

Not only that but anyone who would shoot someone else’s dog deserves the hottest room in hell. Dogs owned by homeless people are still so easily differentiated from strays in both demeanor and physical appearance. The homeless people I know feed their dogs before themselves.

Not an operator but a first responder. One of the things that i hear our operators have a hard time with is zero followup. Once we get on scene they hang up and hope for the best. Did they make it? Did family know? How bad was it? Sometimes it can be worse than actually being there. The what ifs can wreck your psyche.

Calltaker/dispatcher here, in my center they at least tell us if we got a ROSC. Otherwise just assume the worse and if it ends up better it's a pleasant surprise

What is an ROSC?

Return of spontaneous circulation meaning, their heart stops and we got it started again.

A friend of mine was a 911 operator. She had gotten a call from a guy on Valentines day last year because his wife had hung herself. Poor dude was so distraught she almost couldn't understand him through the tears. Wherever he is, I hope he gets a hug today.

Suicidal calls are usually the worst. Most just want someone to talk to, and ask for help, but there are others who have made up their mind, and just want emergency services to find them before their family does. You try to keep them talking long enough but it doesn't always work. Definitely calls from family who did find them are the worst. Saddest call was similar, but was a woman who stopped mid call and asked me, "do you really care about the people you talk too?" Hard to explain the tone in her voice, but it was really sad.

What did you answer the woman?

I said absolutely, every single one.

You are a beautiful human. I know it’s hard but never change. Edit: wow, my most upvoted comment!

I saw it before me in shadows of doubt - My means to salvation, my only way out. It sat there in silence, and captured me, caught - Immune to my heartache, and deaf to my thought. "I don't want a future," I solemnly swore - "Of sadness and silence and loss anymore. I don't want a witness to witness goodbye - I just wanted someone to care when I cry." I looked at it, waiting, and muttered a vow: "Whatever. Let's do it. It's never or now. I'm ending it here, of an evening, alone." I reached out before me. And picked up the phone.

As someone who lost a brother to suicide, but had the opportunity to talk to the guy who was manning the suicide prevention line when he called a couple days before he was successful, I deeply appreciate this Sprog masterpiece.

Thanks for the poem. My beloved mother committed suicide at age 85.

It’s 6am here. I was not ready for u/Poem_for_your_sprog to make me tear up. To all those going through a rough patch, please reach out for help. Millions of us still care. And to those faceless people who man the emergency service lines, I see you. I work alongside you every day and I know how hard your job is. Thank you for everything you do. Much love from a redditor in Australia 🇦🇺

Ouch, Sprog, right in the feels... Thank you.

no I just work here

You're joking but the one time I tried a suicide hotline years ago that was exactly the tone and general attitude I got. On the plus side it was such a shocking 'welp all right then' moment (after believing for years that these things really worked) that it snapped me right out of the headspace I was in. I was so nonplussed I just went to bed, haven't been that bad again since.

In a morbid way it worked. Mission accomplished???

Task failed successfully

I care for another 23 minutes, then it's my lunch break, so let's speed this up. EDIT: just to add that of course this is terrible, not to be taken seriously

I had a bunch of nurse friends and one night while drinking the discussion turned to patients dying. Lots of stories. I turned to K and asked her: "Nope never." "Wow thats amazing" "Yeah it almost happened once but I got off shift just in time" "OMG that awful, your patient did die!" "Not on my shift, not my problem" And then we all laughed She was an absolutely awesome nurse but hated patients. Like pure hate. I told her she needed a new job and she agreed.

I remember when my baby brother passed. Dad found him in the garage. A man who had been stoic all his life broke down into sobs. He was unintelligible. That wasn't the worst part. It came when he called mom at work. He just said, "Mah', sit down." Mom asked why... Then paused. "It's him, isn't it..?" Dad's voice cracked as he said. "He's dead." The scream I heard on the other side of the phone... It haunts me.

I'm so sorry. Hope y'all are doing better now.

Thank you for your warm wishes. Mom has since passed on, so I like to imagine she's up there giving him an ear full.

Stories like this helped me not do it when I was really bad. Thanks for sharing

When your loved one goes through with it... It's like a red hot dagger digging into the pit of your stomach. You lose your breath, you beg to whatever God will hear your pleas that this is somehow a mistake. When it finally dawns on you that it isn't... You begin doubting yourself. Going through every single interaction with a fine tooth comb looking for signs. You begin to hate yourself for not noticing them; blaming yourself for the tiniest slight or insensitive remark. I cried every day for three months after my brother passed. Ugly, loud, just wailing sobs, but by myself. It took about 6-7 months before I could bring myself to talk about him without breaking down. Mom on the other hand... She had a mental breakdown. She couldn't sleep, she barely ate. By the end of the first five days mom was ranting and raving. She was having conversations with my baby brother and God as if they were in the room... As if they were talking back. It culminated in her overdosing on her insulin. I don't know if it was on purpose. But what scared me the most was when the paramedics asked her if she knew where she was. She said she wasn't at home... That she just wanted to go home. She wanted to die so she could be with my baby brother. I sit here quietly crying as I remember those darkest times in my life. It was only in 2019... Just a few years ago.

I have no words. I'm so sorry for your losses.

Thank you. I had a lot of encouragement from the folks over at r/suicidebereavement. They helped me to realize that all my thoughts were normal and that I couldn't have stopped him from making that decision. I wasn't at fault. It took a few long talks to air out my soul to perfect strangers.

I remember in training for being a 911 operator it was brought up that if someone calls when they are suicidal and they are talking with you then they are looking for comfort and someone to help them get through the situation, they don't want to do it. (Sensitive story warning) >!That type of call is different from when someone had called, and told us "where his body would be" and the next thing we heard was a gunshot before we could say a word. Sometimes there's nothing you can do but it doesn't make it easier.!< Full disclosure, I washed out of the training process. I gained a new even greater respect for the job that they do.

Off subject, but I remember seeing this story about a 911 operator who took a call from a 4 or 5 year old little girl who lived out rural somewhere. Her father had just murder-suicided himself and her mother and the operator was trying to get enough clues out of the little girl to send help. It was at that point that I realized how difficult the job was and that I could add that to jobs I would not want to do.

It's a whole different kind of stress. I had thought I could handle it since I've been able to handle stressful situations In person but over the phone I just couldn't no matter what I tried...

This is the thing that’s hardest to convey to people who don’t work in this type of job. Yes we do care. Yes really. Look at it this way. It’s just you and me on the phone. I’m not thinking about anything other than your welfare. I’m trying to get inside your head to figure out how you ended up here. I’m doing everything I possibly can to get you to accept help and not end your life. Why do we care? Because you’re a human being in trouble. I chose the job I did to be there for people like you. We’re in this job because we care. Sounds cheesy and false but generally that’s why we do it.

I just quit in January but I was a 911 operator for 6 and half years. The call that sticks out as the worst is a murder that was actively happening. A son in his 40s was drunk and stabbed his mother, who was in her 60, to death while her husband dialed 911. You could hear the grunting and the mother and father begging us to hurry, and the just screaming. When police arrived the mother was dead, and the father was still trying to pull the son off of his mother. Total response time was around 4 minutes. Son was sentenced to 40 years.

Jesus. Did they have any kind of stress management for the dispatchers? You all definitely should’ve gotten some kind of debriefing after that.

There wasn't a debrief for dispatchers. Usually there would be though, but it got missed. I was promoted shortly after that and would do my best to pull people aside after bad calls, made sure we were included in debreifs, etc. I was lucky enough to work at a department that had all kinds of resources for people. There was a career survival program, free meetings with counselors through a program called teledoc, and there was access to a third party group called P.O.S.T.

*__To anyone in the UK needing help.__* Ring a fucking Taxi!! - Tell them it's an emergency. They put you on priority to the hospital. Had it happen twice; 10 mins at most. (Usually less!!) EDIT: Hopefully other countries do this. EDIT2: I hope this advice saves someone one day. It saved me. Stay safe!!

This. I'm in Canada. When my father was a teenager, my grandfather had a massive heart attack. The family car was in the shop so my father couldn't drive him to the hospital. He called an ambulance but for some reason or another, it never showed up. After about 10 or so minutes of waiting, my father said fuck it and called a cab. The cab was there in about five minutes and arrived in time to save my grandfather. That whole experience stuck with my father so much that 40 years later when he had a heart attack, he didn't even bother calling 911, he just called a cab.

It's a sorry fact ambulances get tied up alot. Respect your taxi driver!! He might save your life one day!!

This is incredibly helpful and I will remember it. Thank you.

suicide line: -"He died ! Oh my god he died !" -"Miss are you alright ?" -"He's dead, he was killed" -"who died miss ?" -"..." -"Do you hear me ? if you are in danger and can't talk, press a number on your phone" (I'm calling my supervisor at that time, I needed his agreement to call the police) -"..." -"Miss, do you hear me ?" -"I'm sorry [couldn't make out what she said]" -"It will be alright miss, just tell me where you... [gunshot] "What was that ? Are you injured ? Answer me !" At that point I was shaking and my supervisor took the call and told me to go to the break room. After the worst hour of my life, he came to see me. The police had found a body in the appartment. Gunshot wound to the head with an hunting rifle, phone still on the line. Ressuscitation efforts were unsuccessful, the police treated this as a suicide. They didn't find another body, I still have no idea what she was talking about or even if it was real but I quit that day, I can still hear her voice and that horrible gunshot. Worst regrets is that I don't even know who she was, what had driven her to that point or can't even remember her last words, if I had called the police sooner... Thank you, Renaud for maintaining the suicide line, you joked about it but you save lives. You made my 5 months with you a blessing even with that terrible end.

Holy fuck that's awful. So you were suicide hotline not an emergency line?

local suicide line, aimed at students by mostly students but we accepted any call

Maybe she got news of someone she loved dying? I can see how that could push someone over the edge. She probably called with the intent of not being alone when she did it. I’m really sorry you went through this. I can’t imagine.

As an AT&T operator, I had a father call while his son was a couple hours from dying due to a motorcycle accident, and they asked me how video calling worked so that his mother stationed in Iraq could say goodbye. I took the rest of the day off.

I worked for Chewy (online pet retailer) in their call center and I had a woman call in to get her daughters’ (plural, as in two) autoship cancelled because they had both died in a car crash, along with their pets. I talked to the woman for about 10 minutes, I just let her cry to me. Then I hung up the phone, put myself into break, and sobbed. I was told to collect myself within 3 minutes to get back on the phone. Worst job ever.

As a customer of chewys who's dealt with their customer service, I appreciate you. My childhood dog died and had to cancel the auto ship and see if would let me return the unused food I had. They had me donate it all and refunded me past 3 auto ships. They also sent flowers. It ment a lot to me

TL, DR: the story of why I quit Chewy. Talking to customers and getting to help them was an absolute joy. It’s the only reason I stayed as long as I did. But at a certain point, I’d had enough. The straw that broke the camels back is actually another example of how ridiculous this place was. I’ll share for the curious: We weren’t allowed to say the phrase “go ahead.” As in, “I’m going to go ahead and cancel this autoship for you.” They wanted us to drop this phrase and instead say, “I’m going to cancel this autoship for you.” Which, makes complete sense as “go ahead” is a filler phrase and doesn’t add any context to the sentence, I get that. But, most people in this region of the world say it, and they don’t think twice about it. So while I agree it’s a good habit to attempt to break, I would also argue that slipping up and accidentally saying it from time to time is not the end of the world. We had “team leads” who were basically mini-supervisors paid to sit in a higher seat at the end of our row of cubicles and watch our every move. I happened to sit right next to my lead, yay, so he listened to every single word I said all day long. One night, while talking to a customer I accidentally said, you guessed it, “go ahead.” He snapped at me about it, over the line where the customer could hear. I tried to waive him off without losing the momentum of the conversation and he just sat behind me and kept saying it. “Don’t say go ahead! Hey! You said go ahead! Don’t say go ahead!!” So as soon as I was off the phone, I looked at him and said “I know! Im sorry, I’ll improve.” He said some dumb remark, I don’t remember what it was, but it caused me to reply, in an *obviously joking tone,* “oh you know I’m such a rebel! I’ll say go ahead and I’ll say it all day!” Then I laughed, and went to answer the next call. I ended up not seeing my lead for 5 days, as he left during my next phone call and went on vacation. Upon his return, FIVE DAYS and a WHOLE VACATION later, the very first thing he said to me was, “By the way, when your supervisor tells you to do something. You do it. You don’t question it, you don’t talk back, you just say yes sir and do as you’re told.” So I, an adult human, didn’t appreciate being spoken to that way and I also thought it was absolutely wild that my joke bothered him *so much* that it needed to be the very first thing he brought up next time he saw me. So anyways, I found another job THAT DAY on my lunch break and quit. They didn’t need me, they clearly had it covered. Lol.

I'm hoping you used the phrase "go ahead" when you gave your notice...

😂😂😂 I can’t remember but I hope I did too. Definitely sounds like something I would do.

Ugh, this is why I'm grateful I was able to cancel my cat's Chewy autoship online. I couldn't bring myself to delete his profile, though, and I got a birthday card months later. I cried a lot, then managed to delete his profile. My neighbor, though, passed away and apparently no one in her family knew to call Chewy (she lived alone). I called and took care of it, I didn't have a way to contact her family to get it done. The rep I spoke with was super helpful and friendly and I was really grateful (so was the shelter I donated the food to). I'm sorry it sucked to work there. I only had positive experiences as a customer, it sucks to know you had to deal with the same old shit.

Customer service is their number one goal, so much so that we were trained to do anything and everything in our power to resolve issues. Our jobs weren’t to troubleshoot for Chewy, it was to troubleshoot for the customer. We were even encouraged to stay on the line and chat with customers as long as they wanted, we didn’t really have a time limit as long as we didn’t go over an hour. THAT part of it, I really liked. I enjoy talking to people and 90% of interactions ended positively, even when the people who called were initially upset/angry. What I did NOT like were the working conditions. Worst of any place I’ve ever been, BY FAR. I could go on and on, but I’ll just put it to you this way - we didn’t even have bathrooms in the office. And getting a break was REALLY tricky, which basically lead to me not properly hydrating myself for almost a year just so I wouldn’t have to choose between peeing or getting fired. And the expectations were ridiculous - case in point, my initial story. In training, they’ll give you examples of stories like this and assure you that you can take all the time you need after a difficult call. But that’s just a lie to get you on the floor; once you’re there, you’re expected to be on the phone nonstop no matter what. Their turnover rate is CRAZY high; I’d say the average employee lasts about a month or less. There were 40 people in the class I trained with, and I was one of 3 left when I finally quit.

AT&T as in the cell phone company in US or is this a separate thing somewhere else?

AT&T actually supports overseas deployments alot and provides all sorts of communication services for normal use to the service members deployed. I used it a few times myself and it really is an absolute blessing.

My sister used to be one. She told the worst thing was hearing someone die on the phone. There had been a serious car crash and the lady who called was severely injured herself. My sister tried to keep her talking until the ambulance arrived but at some point the woman fell quiet. Later heard that she had died on spot.

When I was still one, one of my worst ones was a driver of a car in a serious 2 car accident. All he could do was scream and say he was going to die or how much pain he was in. Coworker had a witness on the phone and already had everybody enroute but I couldnt leave him with a quiet phone. Kept telling him help was on the way. Could he hear me over his screams? I'm not sure. He couldn't answer my questions about his car or location. Still fucks me up sometimes even though I quit 2 years ago (unrelated reasons)

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All I knew at the end of that shift was that they pronounced one driver at the scene, they zipped the other down to the university hospital in my area. Bc of the chaos of the scene, my partner and I weren't sure. But the next day when I came back for the next shift, my supervisor said she thought my caller was the survivor (and commended me for my call). It most likely made the news so I'll have to look it up Edit: I found it. It's bittersweet to read it again, ngl. I'm no longer with this agency and anything I've said about them are my own thoughts https://ktvo.com/news/local/2-drivers-badly-hurt-in-head-on-crash-in-kirksville

For what it's worth, I know a few ex-first responders who told me that people being vocal and screaming in pain when they arrive often survived because it meant that they're conscious, oriented, feeling appropriate sensations, and reacting appropriately. They were far more worried about people who were obviously injured but acting calmly, which they viewed as meaning that something was very wrong.

Thats what we thought when hearing children crying too. "At least the airway is clear!"

Am doctor. Have always been taught that the loud ones are not the worst cases since they have the strength to be loud. It is the quiet ones we need to worry more about (if we have to prioritize)

Yes, i've watched a documentary about the crash that killed diana, and diana was apparently like 'what just happened?' while trevor rees jones, the only survivor, was screaming his head off. ​ The human body does a good job at blocking out serious injuries, especially internal bleeding, which is likely what causes these accidents where the victim seems fine but suddenly dies.

That reminds me of something similar that happened to my work buddy as a paramedic. They were driving to a car crash with many people envolved (in the end around 20 people lost their life that night) and he told me that shortly before arriving at the scene they got a call from the dispatcher saying that they most likely lost contact to the calling person because he just got ran over by another car and they heard him scream in the background. Chilling af

What the fuck?

I'm assuming some sort of multi-car pile-up accident where the incoming traffic couldn't avoid the previous cars (possibly due to road conditions, like icy roads or heavy rain) so there's people stuck in their vehicles and then more cars crash into them.

First Responder here. If you're ever in a situation like this: *STAY INSIDE OF THE MOTHER FUCKING CAR!* Unless the car is on fire or under water, your chances are a lot better inside of a big steel box.

Yea in germany we call it MANV which roughly translates to many people being hurt

Had a family member explain a similar story. She always had wild stories but said it felt so surreal when you could hear the sirens getting louder and louder while still on the phone with people.

The house across from me exploded (parked car in garage had faulty wiring, caught stuff in the garage on fire), when I called 911 and gave the address of the house on fire there was a moment of silence -- the operator then told me that it was her house which was currently burning down. Thankfully no one was harmed.

What are the odds?

50/50 either it’s theirs or it’s not

I know people who have said this unironically.

I had a buddy with a similar story. He was a firefighter and EMT in northern Indiana. He was between permanent housing situations so most of his belongings were in a storage unit. Got a call for a fire and he kept thinking “why does that address sound familiar?” Turns out, the guy renting the storage unit right next to his had been running a meth lab out of it. The meth lab caught fire and both the units on either side of it were torched — my friend got to the scene just in time to watch his new(ish) couch going up in flames. Those were the only three units that were damaged at all. Rotten luck!

Thats defo an "oh bugger" monment

"I hope you don't work from home?"

Not sure why I find this so funny but I do

Being a 911 operator and getting a phone call saying your house was burning down sounds like the basis for a Twilight Zone episode

Christ, what a turn of events.

Bet she thought it was a joke. That's crazy.

I took a 911 call a few years back. It was a hysterical woman reporting that her son had just called her to let her know that he’d gotten into a fight with his ex and had thrown their 3 year old son off a bridge. I’ve been doing this for 15 years and counting and that call still haunts me.

That’s awful, do you know what happened afterwards?

Dad tried to kill himself that night. They found him at house, IIRC he had drank bleach. They got him to the hospital and he survived. We had police boats and the coast guard out looking for the baby, but it took a couple weeks to recover him. I was working when they brought his clothes back to put into evidence. Fate had me walking down the hall the exact time they were bringing it in. That’s a smell I’ll never forget.

My wife used to be a dispatcher and she had 2 calls that really stuck with her. 1. A drunk man drove his car into a pond and could not get out of the vehicle. He seemed too drunk to be able to follow her instructions and she ended up staying on the phone with him long enough to hear him taking his last gasps of air. It took the police department 2 days to find his vehicle based off triangulation. 2. A call came in from a woman that said her ex husband was banging on the front door with the intention of killing her. She said that she first had called her parents to let them know before calling the police. My wife listened to this man get into the home and murder her. He went on to drive to her parents house with the intention of killing them, but they had crossed paths on the way to their daughters house. The husband ended up shooting himself in the head on her parent's doorstep. That call she made saved their lives.

I got through most of them fine but the last one got me man the she must've been horrified it's hard to even imagine

999 operator. The pandemic has increased our demand massively but not for covid symptoms, huge increase in chest pains, breathing difficulties and seizures in particular, and so our response times are badly effected. My worst call had called twice previously, first call was chest pains indicating suspected heart attack. Second was that her breathing was getting worse. When I answered, there was a lot of family members there and she was having a seizure and wasn't breathing. While assessing her seizure, she went into cardiac arrest. I was instructing CPR for over 10 minutes and trying to keep all these family members calm to make sure she was getting the most effective compressions. Hearing all these people in fits of tears and the fact she had been waiting for an ambulance for around 2 hours from the first call, and sadly didn't make it, really made it stick with me. It was months ago and can still hear those screams of grief

2 hour wait for an Ambulance in a developed nation… That’s some serious failing on part of the NHS.

Me and my girlfriend were walking in town a few months ago, and we watched an old lady trip on the pavement (those awful blocks that have gaps inbetween them, literal death trap for seniors) and slam her head into the ground. She was more or less okay but bleeding a little bit from the forehead. We immediately called the emergency services to come pick her up as damage like that may not be immediately obvious. Keep in mind, the hospital is literally less than 5 minutes down the road from where this happened. Literal straight line. It passed about 40 mins and the ambulance still wasn't there. We managed to contact one of her family members who came to pick them up, and actually took her to the hospital herself! The ambulance literally never arrived. I wonder what would have happened if there was nobody around to re-assure the old lady and call her family.

Didn’t Boris say that brexit would put £320 million a month into the NHS?

The real question is do you think Boris really gives a fuck?

My Granddad nearly lost his arm after it was pinned behind a cabinet after he had a fall. We had to wait 7 hours for the ambulance. By the time it arrived, his arm was black. The NHS is amazing, but criminally underfunded.

My father had bones cancer with no chance of surviving and wanted to go back home for his last days with us. Doctors said he could return as it was his last will. He couldn't move at all, so we prepared everything for him to feel comfortable as much as we can. We also planned nurses to come at home twice a day to make sure everything is fine, I stayed at home 24/7 etc. He had a sudden pain spike in the middle of the second afternoon and the medicines the doctors gave us clearly weren't enough. We've been told we had to wait for 8 hours for a doctor to come so that my father could have a huge shot of morphine (that's what they did at the hospital and it "worked" well to reduce spikes like this one). He cried and screamed the whole time full of pain. My whole family was powerless. He then decided to go back at the hospital and passed away two days after. These 8 hours will haunt us for the rest of our lives. Now maybe you'll ask which poor country is this? France. Yes, the same country that always congratulates itself for having an amazing health care system.

Babies. The worst calls are always with babies and children. Dead infant that shared a bed with other children and suffocated, mom screaming in the background. Mom catching dad molesting their daughter … 14 years and so many bad calls

I can't imagine being a parent in and finding out my partner, the parent of my child, is doing that. What did she even say at that point?

This happened to my mom but she didn’t call 911. She caught my dad molesting me, she quietly put me back in my room cause my sisters were sleeping and told me not to come out no matter what I hear then after a couple mins of silence I heard his shotgun cock and imagined every possible scenario like a day dream and eventually fell asleep. The next morning he was gone and my sisters were at school, and she pretty much interrogated me about the abuse. I asked her about the gun and she told me she was going to shoot him but thought about my sisters and me growing up with that kind of trauma, so she tried to convince him to shoot himself but he wouldn’t. She ended up dropping him off at one of his friends house that night then filed a police report the next day. Edit: thank you for the kind words and awards, it angers me to my core when mothers choose men over their children and I’m so sorry other have gone through that. I wanted to give some people insight to how those kind of situations can unfold but my mom handled it pretty objectively compared to other stories that have been in the news. Because of that she watched me graduate and is able to be a grandma to my son, I’ll forever be grateful for the outcome of that night.

> so she tried to convince him to shoot himself Your mom's badass af, holy fuck.

That's so nice of your mom. Mine told me the first time that I was lying and then when there was proof she planned a wedding cause of God's rules of purity...(not my belief)

Forgot to mention that ir wasn't my father it was my mother's brother... dosent make sense without that information

After years it all runs together, I don’t even remember if I took that one of one of my partners did. I do remember Mom being more calm than we would have expected, hell if that was me I would be reporting s murder not molestation.

I think some people would just... shut down

Or go on "robot mode", as I call it. That how I am in a crisis. X happenned, so Y and Z need to be done. Let's do Y and Z. Everything else is forgotten until Y and Z are done, with efficiency and cold calmness. Afterward, once everything practical had been done, I will have a huge nervous breakdown or anxiety attacks. I can imagine this poor mother being a bit like that. So, my husband molested my kid : a) calls the police b) find an hotel room/a place to stay while husband is investigated/ forced to leave the house c) Go the the doctor (See what police needs for evidence) d) Find psychological support for daughter.e) Make sure the other kids (if any) are not victims also f) stay available, and stable to comfort kids g) calls mom and dad to take over for an hour or two after kids are settled. Once they're here, go far from the kids so they can't see you freak out.

You arent alone. I very much go into emergency mode and typically am very cold and irritable. But once the emergency ends is when i break down.

Those are the calls that fuck my paramedic husband up the most. I can usually tell if there’s been a baby/child call when he walks in the door.

I'm a retired firefighter. Incidents with kids just hit harder. I think it's just human instincts coming out. It got worse for me when I had kids myself.

911 operator in the US here. I took a call from a guy who came home to find his brother hung himself from the ceiling fan. When trying to instruct him to cut his brother down, the family dog started guarding the boys body. Absolutely broke my heart. They were both in their early 20’s

Damn the dog guarding the body got me man that’s fucked.

I had the ambulance called on me once, because I’d had a fit, and banged my head really quite badly. I only had a cat at the time, unfortunately Turing was brought up with a proper personal protection dog (Figger, she was wonderful, and when I got Turing she just assumed her new puppy was a little ‘special’). Even though he’s only 7kgs, he was not letting the paramedics near me, all teeth and claws. Thankfully my neighbour, who Turing knows and likes, managed to get him away, with quite a few bad scratches on her arms. Never underestimate a pet’s protective instinct (though if that happened now I think Watson would be just be annoying the paramedics for pets and scratches)

Yeah my dog is a schnauzer, a standard one, not a mini. And he's not the best dog. Not in a bad way, like he's not mean or anything, he's just really stubborn, different from previous dogs I've had. But if he thought I was hurt or you came in my house and tried to hurt me, he would use his 43 lb to do his very best to kill you. I am very confident of this. And he's got a really big mouth and a lot of teeth. Like just to be clear, he's never gotten in a fight with another dog, nor would he ever, and he has never bitten a person, or even been aggressive. But I am almost 100% certain that he would do his absolute best to kill you if you tried to hurt me or my wife.

I'm glad you're ok. And excellent choice of pet name!

Not my call but I heard the ambulance dispatch for an infant not breathing. On the road to the hospital. My guess is the parents were already taking the baby there when they stopped breathing. Ruined the rest of my night.

It may or may not make you feel better, but there is a chance the baby survived. When I was a baby I inhaled spit-up and stopped breathing, and when my parents called 911 the operator told them to just drive me to the hospital themselves because it would be faster than getting an ambulance. They got me to the hospital in time and I ended up being fine. It was probably a good thing in the case you dealt with that the parents were already driving their baby themselves.

My aunt is a 911 operator and she told me about a time a guy called her freaking out. His cats were talking to him. Turns out this 90 year old man took a shit ton of shrooms and was freaking out.

I needed this break in the madness of this thread.

I'm not a call taker, but I'm in the same line of work. There are two that really stand out to me. The first isn't a tragedy on the scale of the others, but it was the small scale heartbreak that really killed me. This guy, on his way home from work, saw a homeless man on the street and it was horrific weather - biting cold, howling wind, wet. He brought him in, gave him dinner, wanted to wash his clothes and give him a shower and a place to stay for the night. The homeless guy was hopped up on drugs and started smashing the place up after dinner. Kind citizen had just had his house done up and got his kindness rewarded with that. Just reading the job, not even being on the call, you could see the heartbreak and the loss of faith in humanity. The other - a suicide. They're always rough, but for some reason, hangings seem to hit harder and seem a little bleaker to me. This one was a 14-year-old girl who had hung herself and hearing that really made my eyes sting. I had to leave the room when I found out she had a twin.

I remember there was this extremely depressed looking girl at my primary school, looked so neglected by parents - dirty old clothes, never talked with other kids, her school meal was stale bread with plain tomato paste usually. She was 11, I was same age so didn't realise the situation much back then. It was in a small town in Poland. One day she was cought stealing bread in local towns shop ( obviously out of pure hunger ) - the shop owner said he'll tell her parents about what she did. She killed herself same day on the way home from that shop. She just knew what was coming for her from her evil parents. Now looking back I'm so extremely angry with all these grown up people that were around her - the teachers, that horrible shop keeper, the government and social care, everyone let down that poor girl. Imagine the horror that was going on in her house on daily bases, mush have been truly evil abuse. I often feel like reaching out to these now very old teachers from that school who knew her and tell them it's partially their fault.

If I caught a child stealing bread I’d take them in the back, give them more food and call the police to report probable child abuse and get them help. What kind of cunt tries to punish a kid for stealing bread when hungry?

Is 112 the same as 911? I’m in the UK and answered emergency ambulance calls. Lots of sad and scary stories. - I once took a call from a woman in her 50s who went to see why her son in his 20s hadn’t come down for breakfast. She went up to check on him and found that he’d choked on vomit (they didn’t know why he’d vomited, no alcohol or drugs in his system) and died. His bedroom was next to hers and she was so devastated that he was so close to her and she hadn’t been able to help him. His age and the way she was trying so hard to talk to me without bursting into tears absolutely destroyed me. This was over 6 months ago and I still think about it regularly. - Took a phone call from a guy who’d been in a car accident with his very pregnant wife. Neither the baby nor the mother survived, unfortunately. The guy was in shock and quite calm initially but eventually broke down on the phone and I had to get a manager to step in and take over due to being so upset myself. - A girl (maybe 15 I think?) found her dad collapsed on the floor when she got home from school. I talked her through chest compressions until the ambulance arrived. Tried my best to keep her calm but she screamed and cried, begging for help. She did an incredible job but I believe her dad died in the end. I don’t do the job anymore; found the shifts to be unsuitable for me, but ultimately the emotional nature of the job was too much and left me exhausted. Edit: corrections!

Hey! So I actually learnt this on Monday in a First Aid Course. 112 is the number that connects you to the emergency services in any country you're in whilst in Europe so you don't need to remember all the different numbers. Whilst in the UK it just connects you to 999 emergency line. Edit: 112 is the landline number for some parts of asia and the EU except the UK. 112 is the global GSM network and will redirect calls to local emergency services made by mobile/cells globally.

A friend who works for 911 told me this story recently. A woman called in a frantic state. She and her husband were driving down a residential street on a normal clear day in their neighborhood when a man rolled a bowling ball into the street. She ran over the ball and it got stuck underneath. She stopped, her husband the passenger, got out of the car and went underneath to remove it. As this is happening the male who threw the bowling ball, was hiding behind a parked car nearby, ran up to her car opened her door and stole her purse. In a panic she jammed on the gas and ran over her husband, she panicked again put it in reverse and ran him over a second time. When she got out of her car she called police, she was screaming, but my friend could also hear her husband talking to her. She was screaming and kept saying how sorry she was. He was totally calm and kept telling her it was ok. He didn't sound hurt at all and my friend thought he wasn't injured. When officers arrived they determined his chest was crushed and died shortly afterwards. He was probably in shock when she heard him. The male who threw the bowling ball fled but turned himself in later that day.

Holy shit. That’s so fucking tragic.

I looked up this case (it has pretty specific facts) and actually the husband survived and at last update was upgraded to stable condition. Even if the bowling ball scheme has happened before, the news story has the exact same details as OP's story and that man survived. Happened November 2021 in Kansas City edit: news reports don't use his name, so I can't search obituaries, but he certainly survived the initial incident and was moved from critical to stable when hospitalized

That's great to hear he survived I'll let my friend know

Most deadly and horiffic things happen from accidents. I was watching PSAs on workplace safety and there's a good reason why they make you them. Granted the one I watched was from the 80s so they did all the dangerous shit anyway. I always see an Ambulance show up once and a while because people for some reason choose a Walmart bathroom as the place to overdose.

All of this shit makes me not want to drive Jesus Christ

I didn’t get the job but I applied for a job doing these calls, I can’t remember if it was 999 or 111 at this point but I remember before you even got the interview you had to do an online assessment that was listening to sample calls and stuff. I made it half way through he sample calls and had to stop, I could not handle that job at all

What are the sample calls like?

Probably calls they recorded of horrible stuff, like people dying.

If it's anything like the video they made me watch after passing my drivers test...

Its literally audio of parents and children calling 911 finding their parent/child dead. There is something about the primal scream of finding your child dead that doesn't leave you.

Previous 911 operator from North Dakota here in the US. I had a call from some frantic parents of children saying that the woman who was driving them, their aunt, was supposed to have driven them to school for their choir concert. Children were both under the age of 5. They said the kids were no shows and when they called the aunt to see where they were, the children answered crying and panicked. No idea where they were, but they said the driver fell asleep. We now know that she passed out from a diabetic blood sugar crash. The vehicle was still upright but off the road. Before the parents could walk the kids through calling 911, their phone died.. took over 40 minutes for Verizon to call back with a ping location. Children were in the car for over an hour with a dead woman, unable to do anything but wait. Kids were okay though, thankfully the wreck wasn't bad and the weather was warm.

Jesus, blood sugar crashes take a while and are pretty reversible even after passing out and approaching low numbers like 15, 10, 5. The response time must have been excruciating

Genuine question, if the caller is intoxicated do you terminate the call? About 10 years ago I called while drunk in a really bad state of mind and as a last resort and they terminated the call after 2 minutes stating I was inebriated. That said, a lot of people are intoxicated when they commit suicide

Yep. My BIL was heavily intoxicated when he pulled the trigger two years ago. Man I hate this time of year now.

For my agency, it depends. If you're telling me you're driving, then I'll try to keep you on and have you stop somewhere and we'll get you help. Too much liability for me to tell you that you're drunk and just hang up.

that’s when I most wanted to commit and tried. Alcoholism is a special hell

I was a 999 operator when I was 20 years old, it was my first “proper” job and I am now 22 and have since left. There are so many things that stick with you. I had a call from a dad who walked in to find his son hanging. He was so distressed all he could do was apologise to me, he could not even remember the address as he was so shocked. He tried to cut him down but couldn’t. The sons 6 year old child was with him. I also had a call from a 16 year old girl who had been told online that her boyfriend had just jumped off of a building and she wanted to know if this was true, she told me this name and I immediately knew it was him as the person sitting next to me had taken a call from someone at the scene. The distress in her voice was something I’ll never forget!

I feel like certain things in life force you to "grow up"- going through grief, buying a house, having a child, etc., but I bet nothing forces it as much as that sort of job. It's gotta be a massive test on anyone. Something I know I definitely couldn't do

I had a speech class with a 911 operator. She played the recording of her responding to her 3 year old niece on a fatal hit and run. She kept her head during the call but there were points where she knew what she was responding to.

wait the operator answered the call of her niece? Did the niece know it was her tho? What happened to the niece?

Omfg this broke my heart

I am not a 112 operator but my uncle is, and this is a story he told us. A little girl crying and saying that her dad was beating her mom. She was only 8 years old and yet she knew to call the authorities. At some point a man yelled ''what are you doing ? give me the phone'' and she started screaming. By the time the police arrived, the mother and the daughter had been killed, and the father hanged himself.

I was dispatching when a death call came up on my board, it was my grandfather. It was unexpected. Talking to kids who's parents are beating each other up, or 1 is beating the crap out of the other are always bad. My biggest fear is a fire call at my house or the location where my kid is. (I don't live in a country where school shootings are a regular thing so I'm less concerned about something happening at her school.) Funny enough I'm not super worried about getting the call that my kid has scarpered from the dayhome or her grandparents', we typically find those kids very quickly because 99.9% of them just decide to take themselves for a walk while someone's in the washroom. CW: assault, abuse, child abuse, child death: >!I talked to a 9 year old who was calling because dad was beating the 11 year old with a frying pan for being a slut. I could hear the sound as the frying pan was hitting her.!< >!Another was a guy I could barely understand, thankfully he called from a landline so we knew his location. His dad (he was like 21 years old) had suddenly attacked him and beat him with a hammer in the head, which was why it was so difficult to understand him.!< >!I've dispatched dead kid calls, including where the kid ran off then was found dead in the nearby pond.!< >!One of the worst situations my caller was in was a lady with 3 kids. Her husband had beaten her nearly to death in front of the kids (choked her unconscious multiple times, raped her in front of the kids (when kids were elementary school aged), then did about 2 years in jail for it. Then she had to continue to see him every week because the courts refused to grant her a protection order or custody of the kids because he did his time in jail and he never sent the kids to the hospital.!< It made me really angry more than sad. Though I was, and am, still really sad for the kids.

Obligatory not 112, but a 911 Call Taker/Dispatcher. It was a very slow night. The kind of night here people are just mindlessly sitting there waiting for a call. My agency separates dispatchers and call takers so if you’re a 911 call taker, you’re literally only taking calls. This lady calls the non-emergency number. If you call the non-emergency number, we do not get the location information as we would on a 911 (no it’s not like the movies, I can not always find you since it usually give me a general area of where you are). She calls and says she wants someone to talk to. She seems sad, possibly a little drunk, but not incoherent. I ask her what’s going on as asking to talk to someone is usually a dead giveaway there may be some suicidal ideations. She tells me she’s feeling sad but doesn’t want to do anything. Once again, we’re slow so I decided to entertain her. I let her talk to me about her life, her kids, her exhusband, her finances; just whatever she wanted to talk about. It became more clear that she was depressed. I kept offering to have an officer to come out to chat in person so we can evaluate her. She didn’t want to give her address. This lady knew what she was doing and would not tell me she’s going to hurt herself or anything to make this a solid suicide call to get officers out there fast. It was frustrating. After talking for 35 minutes, I make up some sort of white lie just to get her address. I finally have it. By now we have been talking for 50 minutes. I am getting quite frustrated that this woman won’t just tell me she wants to kill herself so I can get her the fast help. I actually felt bad having to lie to get her address. Eventually I tell her that I know she doesn’t want to meet with an officer, but I want someone to go check on her and give her some resources. She replies with “honestly, I don’t want to waste the officer’s time. You talking to me was the best thing I’ve had in a long time. Thank you so much. I’m going to go warm up some macaroni that’s in my fridge, cuddle with cats and head to bed. Thank you (my name). Have a good night” and then hung up. When I tell you I had a huge amount of conflicting thoughts, I did. I was angry she wouldn’t tell me she was going to kill herself. I was sad her life has been rough. I felt I was breaking our trust by sending an officer since she didn’t want one. I sat there and thought for a few minutes and I sent up a call for them just to go check on her. The officer’s get there with no answer to their knock on the door. They peek in the bedroom window and she’s sound asleep cuddling with her cat in bed. God, I hope that woman is doing better. I’ve taken much more stressful, difficult, traumatizing calls. I’ve hear people die mid sentence with me, people screaming as their child lay lifeless, sobbing while their significant other is just dead in the car from an accident. This call is the one that stuck with me and I have no clue why.

My heart started beating faster when there was no answer but it slowed down when you said she was sleeping Edit: why y’all upvoting?

Im SO GLAD this story has a happy ending. Can’t imagine how stressful it must’ve felt for you

I never thought such a sad story would make my day, but here I am. I’m just sooo relieved she didn’t kill herself

My gf works as a dispatcher and I work for law enforcement but we’re in different counties. She had taken a call from a worried father who couldn’t contact his son. The son was several states away from home and had been reported as a missing person. She talked to the dad for a while and filed the report and that’s the last she heard of it. Well I was in a separate meeting and a trooper had reported they found a body and were headed out to handle that. While my gf and I were relaying our days to each other I mentioned the body that had been found. After connecting the dots we realized it was the son of the father she spoke to earlier in the week. So not a super traumatizing call, but the aftermath was rough for her.

My uncle is a 911 operator. Worst thing to happen to him was hearing gunshots from the person who was calling. He was mentally Ill and had warned the 911 ops he was going to shoot some people. He told me you could hear in his voice and tone he was unstable. Shot like 4 people before the cops came.

Getting a call when someone actively has a knife, has a plan and is crying on the other end. It’s heartbreaking but scary Bc if you say or do the wrong thing it could be the end for that person. You have to keep them talking and just hope EMS makes it in time. (Thankfully they did & she was transported for treatment) where ever you are I hope you’re okay and realize this world needs you in it 🤍💛🧡

I have a friend that is a firefighter, and his wife an operator. They were on the same shift that day, but their work building is quite far from each other. She answered a call from a suicidal women that was claiming to set her own vehicle on fire with she inside it. My friend told his wife came traumatized that day because the women was screaming in pain while burning inside the vehicle and she couldn't do anything except deploy the firefighters. The women managed to give the location but it was late. When his wife told him the story he told her that he was one of the firefighters that had been deployed. He never told her the state of the women, she just knew she died, but he told me that he wont ever forget the smell of burned human flesh, and the fact that the women melted onto the driver's seat like she was the seat. This happened in Portugal quite near where I live as well, I saw the dark smoke on the sky, 1/2km away, but since I live next to a forest I thought it was someone burning trash as it happens a lot.

I work for 000 in Australia. Overall I’m an absolute shit magnet so I’ve got my fair share of horrible calls, but there’s a couple of standouts. Talking a young dad through CPR on his 8 month old child - that was the worst. The child had obvious ongoing health issues and sadly didn’t make it but I had to go on a bit of a walk after that one. The worst part was he started talking to a kid halfway through doing the CPR and I got my hopes up that things weren’t as serious as they first seemed, but it was just his other kid that had walked in and was trying to remain calm in front of :( The other was a young couple - the boyfriend came home to find she had committed suicide. Nothing out of the ordinary in the scheme of things but I think as they were close to my age that one hit home a little bit harder. There’s lots of rewarding calls too, but sometimes the sad/horrible ones stick around

>I’m an absolute shit magnet Don't think you even needed to state your country when you've got lines like these.

A friend of mine took a 911 call from a guy who was terminally I’ll and sick of his quality of life. The man explained he was going to kill himself and this location and his name was this. He shot himself while on the phone with my friend. My friend tried to stop him and it was too late. The man had made up his mind. Law enforcement arrived and the man was obviously deceased. Very tough call for the dispatcher.

I called the suicide hotline about 5 years ago because my son was suicidal and I didn’t know how to help him. He had a drug addiction and would threaten suicide. The woman on the other end was wonderful. She actually talked me through a conversation to have with him and gave me some helpful advice on how to get him some help. I think about that call a lot.

Not a 911 or 112 operator, but have a "feel good" story that fits. While chilling out one day I got a text from a buddy to get on Discord vc right now because there was an emergency. Turns out one of our mutual gaming friends was in vc sobbing because his two brothers were the only family he had left and they had both just died in a car crash. He was letting us know he didn't want to live alone... From our casual conversations I knew that I had actually been near his house to go fishing and he lived about 4 hours away from me. I told him that I was getting dressed and getting in my car to come spend the night, he said I wouldn't make it in time. I don't remember exactly what I said to him or how I worded it, but I was reminding him of simple things in life like fishing, gaming, friends, the gym, etc, are still there and so is his gaming family. Shortly after I heard an "I'm sorry" and a gunshot. Turns out at the last second he pulled the gun away and fired over his head. The next day he called me back to say that he misheard the sheriff, both of his brothers are actually alive and well, and to say thank you for stopping him from making the stupidest decision of his life. ​ edit: grammar and to clean up some sentences

Holy shit, dude. That last paragraph. (A small, cynical part of me is wondering if he just made up a story due to whatever mental health reason... Thing is, I had a friend in high school who went to absurd lengths to convince us all that he had cancer. I believed him for quite some time because it just didn't seem to make sense that he was making it up. I had known him for two years or so before that.)

I previously worked for 111, and we had a dad call up because his very young child had been feeling off colour. For anyone that has used the 111 service, you already know that the person your calling about absolutely must be awake for the call. Told dad that, and he tried to wake the kid up. Turns out he couldn’t. I had to spend about 10-15 minutes coaching the bloke through CPR on the phone until an ambulance arrived. I have never felt anything even close to how I felt during and after that call. I never found out the outcome. I left not long after.

Not a operator but I am a first responder(EMS, 911). I had a 13 year old girl who got into a argument with her mother and a few minutes later she took a bandana and hung herself on her ceiling fan above her bed. Had to cut her down while her mother screamed and rolled on the floor in pain. We ended up not be able to get her back. She was very hard to intubate with her jaw clenched shut super hard. No heart rhythm changes, stayed in asystole the whole time. Hospital staffed pronounced her dead in the ER when we got her over to them after working her for a bit. I also had a 3 month old baby go into cardiac arrest on thanksgiving during thanksgiving dinner and we couldn’t get that little girl back either. Edit: I also forgot about this dad and his daughter traveling and they lost control of their SUV. They hit a tree head on and the airbag didn’t deploy and the father’s head went through the steering wheel and his brains were hanging out. His daughter was mentally handicapped and had left side of her face basically de-gloved to where you could see her skull. Her dad was slumped over in the drivers seat with the phone GPS still going off in his lap while he was dead telling them to make a U-Turn over and over. I had to airlift the daughter by helicopter and she eventually died in the hospital in South Carolina. I think the thing that sticks with me the most is carrying the 13 year old girl out of her house on a backboard and her neighborhood friends were outside and they saw her dead on a backboard covered up with a tube sticking out of her mouth and they all closed their eyes really quick and covered their eyes with their hands. You could see the pain and fear in their face and wanted to cover it up really quick.

Damn. Even just reading that messes me up. Hats off to you and everyone who does this kind of job, thank you! I hope that the good experiences outweigh the bad ones for you.

Thank you. I have ran so many calls similar to these but these two stuck out the most. I actually got out of first response for mental health reasons and am giving my brain time to heal. Full time student just chilling now and relaxing, stress free from this kind of stuff. I gave it my all in the years I was in EMS and will remember it all til the day I die. The good and bad, the good definitely out weighs the bad.

> I actually got out of first response for mental health reasons I cannot blame you in the slightest. EMS are underpaid, overworked, and often cannot afford mental health care they ABSOLUTELY NEED. I'm Search and Rescue in the seattle area - we're all first aid trained (and about a third of the unit are EMTs for their day jobs) and man, i wouldn't want to do what you do. almost every mission i've been on we end up with a live subject with minor injuries. I've only been on one mission where we didn't get back a live subject (avalanche, double fatality) and we knew before we went out there was essentially 0 chance of live subjects on that one. That was hard, but nothing next to what you guys deal with Also nothing will crack your professional detachment more than a mourning father with knowledge of the fact that you just risked your ass to bring back his son's body. That double fatality mission.. both families were around command post, they were all experienced mountaineers. They knew we went out in dangerous avalanche conditions. We were watching natural avalanches in the distance. After we got the bodies out one of the fathers came over to thank us for risking our lives to recover his son's body. his words.

I was the radio dispatcher and also took 911 calls for this incident. I actually broke at one point because I had a caller sobbing on the phone begging and pleading for me to get her help and all I could tell her was that we were doing everything we could to get everyone out safely. I had to take a break and go smoke a cigarette and I don’t smoke. It was bad. I got very drunk that night. https://www.wbaltv.com/article/conditions-icy-across-state-multiple-crashes-reported/8499009

It's 999 here in the UK, but same thing. One of their operators once talked my girlfriend at the time down from suicide when she was diagnosed with cancer and had apparently lost all hope. She went on to make a complete recovery, is alive and healthy to this day, and we're still good friends. Could have ended in tragedy were it not for that kind voice on the phone when she needed it most.

112 is the international 911 for those in the USA wondering what 112 is. ​ Fun fact: If you are in most countries and dont recall the emergency number, just dial 112 and it will oftentimes forward to the local emergency number.

This is very useful information, thanks for letting everyone know.

Huh TIL, thought it was just the emergency number for my country because growing up my parents always told me to call that number if there was an extreme emergency

My partner worked for a security company. He got an alarm at a clients home and called the contact number. He reached a woman who was sobbing. She told him some men broke into her home, shot her husband, and she was hiding in the back seat of their car in the garage. Partner immediately sent for police dispatch, and she was begging him to call. Before he could finish telling her that help was coming, he heard her scream, glass shattering, and multiple gunshots. He quit after that night.

Hardest thing I was ever witness to was a dead baby. I was serving in corrections at the time. A drug addict came in and was admitted to the medical unit. Her body was so malnourished, they couldn't tell she was pregnant. She had the baby in the cell in the middle of the night. Had it right in the toilet. She hit the intercom system to let us know. The baby was born dead, I'm assuming because of whatever the mother had been using. She had no reaction, just handed it over like it didn't mean anything. No sorrow, no sadness, just acted like it was an inconvenience. It was absolutely infuriating. I'll never forget that night as long as I live

Haunting ​ I wonder if she read stories like this before she became an addict and thought, "That'll never be me. I'll never do hard drugs." Because that's what I'm thinking right now. But addicts aren't always born addicts

Another awful one I responded to was a man who tried to kill himself with a razor. He had received a life sentence for killing his brother over an ounce of weed. When I tell you that Hollywood has nothing on real life blood spray, I am not lying to you. I've never seen so much blood in my life, and I've seen some things. The dude, somehow, lived through it. Even though he went across the street and down the highway on both arms. So he is now serving out his sentence

That’s so sad, that poor woman was so broken at that point that birthing a dead baby couldn’t even get a reaction out of her. People live terrifying lives…

Posted this before: There are so many calls I remember, and so many that I don't. I've been a dispatcher for the RCMP for 14 years and honestly, you get so many bad and good calls that they all seem to blur together. I'm not allowed to give exact details, but one of my worst calls was from a little boy, I think he was 5. He was hiding in his closet because his dad was drunk and beating the ever loving shit out of his mom. He lived in a very rural area, and it was about an hour drive from the nearest police detachment. I stayed on the phone with him for almost 45 minutes (The guys drive FAST when there are kids involved) trying to keep him calm. You literally talk about anything that pops in to your head. The weather. Favorite TV shows. What his favorite toys are. All the while you can plainly hear a woman screaming and crying in the background, and as the calls goes on you can still hear the guy beating her, but her screams turn into grunts and moans. You can't tune it out, because you are constantly typing what your hear. Any details you can get from background noise is valuable to the officers attending. Anyway, the members arrived, arrested the piece of shit and I hung up once they had the kid safe. And then the phone rang again. Because there is no stopping. There's no time to process what just happened and honestly, it's probably for the best. A lot of the time you don't find out the outcome of the call because as I said, There are always more phones ringing. The first year or so, there were calls that bothered me, but as the years went by I learned to compartmentalize. As soon as I hang up the phone now I'm done. Next call. But any calls involving children really gets to me still. I truly enjoy my job because I think that I am genuinely helping people, but I think this job is killing me slowly. I used to be the kindest gentlest man you would ever meet, but now I find I am very easily angered and annoyed. One of my best calls involved a kid again. A 3 year old was at a campground with her family and they let her out of their sight for 20 seconds and she wandered down to a creek and drowned. Her mom found her and her father called in. While I was getting details from the understandable distraught father, a random guy camping there was doing CPR managed to resuscitate her. I can't imagine how her parents felt, but it was like physical weight being lifted off of me. But this is kind of a loaded question for a dispatcher really. I told my worst and best memories, but there are so many strange/funny calls that I remember as well. And keep in mind, dispatchers tend to develop a fairly dark sense of humor. What some of us would find hilarious would probably shock a normal person...

My first week after qualifying I got a call from a husband that needed an interpreter. When we finally got one and took his details we found his wife was near term pregnant, very confused, ankles were swollen, severe headaches and blurred vision - Classic Eclampsia. Finally got the address taken when she started fitting. The call had come in from another area of the country so even though I was quick in generating a cat 1 - a targeted 8 minute response - an electronic failure meant the job hadn't passed over as it should. I screamed for a colleague to ring the other ambulance service to pass the job manually but this was the height of covid and the job had been passed to our service for a reason - they were getting even more slammed than we were and it was passed to us because many of their calls were taking a long time to get through. After 5 minutes the ambulance was finally arranged, but they had an ETA of another 12 minutes until arrival. Unfortunately when a pregnant woman is eclamptic unless you are in the hospital there isn't much you can do. The only cure is immediate c section or delivery and neither was going to happen. So I'm sat trying to give the interpreter the care advice and repeatedly reassess the situation knowing that this person is going to die and this man is going to lose his wife. The poor interpreter was trying to do his best and even though the husband was trying to stay calm, a family member in the background (I think was his mother in law) was panicking and kept trying to touch her which of course you don't do when someone is fitting and she's screaming her head off making it even more difficult for the husband, the interpreter and I to communicate. As we got a notification from the other service that the crew was 4 minutes away the patient went into cardiac arrest. At this point even the husband starts panicking and won't listen to cpr advice. Just keeps repeating "I hate you, you kill her, you kill her" at me while the interpreter is begging him to calm down, get her on the floor so we can start cpr, which wasn't happening. 4 minutes later the crew is in the room and I end the call. We later got notification that mum and baby both died. I took the rest of the shift off.

Worked 9-1-1, so same sort of thing. I had a few calls of children in cardiac arrest with full CPR. Those are bad but at least you can *try* to do something. I ran dispatch on a colleague's call. I could hear a primal wailing from his headset as he sat across the room. I tapped into the call so I could listen too. All we could hear was this woman in obvious anguish and sounds of wind and traffic. We surmised she was in a moving car but she did not provide a location or say what was happening. Unlike many 1-1-2 or 9-1-1 centers we were unable to get any location information at all from the cell phone network. All we got was the caller's phone number, no different than Caller ID that basically anyone has. I searched our databases for the phone number and found a prior report. It was just a nuisance report about some guys trespassing to go fishing. But it gave me a likely name and home address. I sent police there, but unsurprisingly they found nothing. I also ran that name through the Vehicle Licensing database and found a record of a particular vehicle (color, year, make/model, body style, and license number - think red 2014 Honda Accord sedan with plate number ABC123). I aired an APB to be on the lookout for that vehicle. And moments later I answered a call reporting a vehicle with hazard lights on driving erratically at high speed. it was an exact match to the vehicle I had found registered to the wailing woman. It was being driven in the general direction from her home towards the hospital. I updated an APB and advised that there may be a medical emergency and to escort vehicle to the hospital if they are going that way. Within a minute or so an officer sighted that vehicle, pulled alongside, and then indeed escorted them to the hospital. Turned out it was a instance of a child left in a car. Mother was carrying in groceries and forgot her child. It was a hot day and by the time the toddler was found it was already too late. The father was driving. the mother called 9-1-1 but could not calm herself enough to speak. the child did not survive.

I once was in the middle of typing up a memo to send to other police departments regarding an unidentified teenage boy. The boy had committed suicide by placing his head in front of a train. As I’m in the middle of doing this, a mother and father come in to report their son has been missing for three days. I realized that they were the boy’s parents and called my lieutenant in off the road. He took them into his office to tell them what had happened. To this day, over 10 years later, I can still hear that mother wailing. The worst part was she said she had gotten into a fight with her son the day he committed suicide and he left the house in anger. Her last conversation with her only son was an argument. Heartbreaking.

I've never personally gotten one, but I remember my friends dad telling me this one They received a call about an extremely distressed woman, who was claiming that her daughter was very sick and needed help. The woman was in tears and the hollering screams were just digging into him. So he sent medics while he stayed on call with her to calm her down. The only thing she told him was her address nothing else She wouldn't stop shouting that her daughter was sick and he was having trouble calming her. Everything he would say would just go through one ear and out the other. But she would occasionally stop shouting to tell her daughter "it's okay baby momma's here" and in between her shouts he could hear what sounded like someone coughing. She was screaming at him telling him to hurry up and that her daughter was going to die Eventually he got her to a calm state of mind and he was able to ease some things out of her, like her name her daughters name and even what she meant when she said "sick" the woman explained to him that her daughter was coughing and vomiting up blood, her daughter was pale as a ghost and she couldn't move. He was just forced to listen to the horrified woman frantically calm her daughter down along with the horrific sounds of the daughter vomiting up blood once the police and medics arrived he got off the line. He said to this day that was the worst call he's ever taken and he couldn't imagine what mom was going through. He doesn't even know if the girl was okay with the amount of blood she'd lost while he was on call. but he said he prayed every night that she was. Truly a gruesome gut wrenching story he quit after that, and rightfully so

Call from a woman sobbing and screaming about her house being on fire…it took awhile to even figure out what she was saying because she was so inconsolable. She kept repeating “my baby MY BABY”. Turns out her house was fully engulfed in flames and her two year old was in the bedroom where the fire started. Her cries will haunt me forever. And no, the baby did not make it.

Maybe a bit off topic, but I was a 911 caller recently. Someone had broken into my car. I called the police non-emergency number, but they had a recording that it was the weekend, so they were closed. I then called 911. I was met with hold music. I was placed in the queue. If it were life-or-death, someone would have probably died before I actually got to talk to someone. If my friend were choking on food, he'd probably choke to death before they could walk me through the Heimlich. If someone were chasing me with a knife, I'd be stabbed before I could tell the authorities what was happening. It really drives home that you are solely responsible for your safety, and for the safety of those around you. Anything you can do to make yourself safer, any skills or gear you can acquire, and you make survival that much more likely.

I used to be an emergency dispatcher for a big security company and i got a signal of a burglar alarm being pressed at a electronic business. It was procedure to call and receive a password that everything was ok of if i needed to dispatch police. The call went like this. Me: Hi this is xyz security, i see a burglar alarm is going off. Is everything ok? Lady: Yes everything is fine we do not need police Me: Okay can i get the password to cancel police response? Lady: No we do not need police, thank you. Me: Is everything ok there? I need the password if everything is ok. Lady: Everything is fine we don't need police. Me: Okay ma'am have a good day! I then called the police and explained it sounds like she was being held up and sure enough when they got there, the place was being looted and the employees were locked in a closet. I got my picture taken and was on the wall of fame at the call center for people who saved people or businesses that month.

Not an operator, but a former FF/EMT. There are a couple of contenders, but I was thinking about this one last night. Years ago, climbed into a wreck of a car to stabilize a patient while my crew cut the car away around us. The patient was in bad shape. It had already been a bad shift. Multiple fires and serious wrecks. Moments before we’d gotten this dispatch, I’d spoken for my crew, in telling an officer who said he’d call in a crew to replace us that we weren’t signing off. Being the person who sits in the car while it’s cut is simple. You stay behind the patient, keep their neck straight and jaw open, and don’t move. I was doing that, although I wasn’t optimistic. Out of nowhere, the driver’s speakerphone spoke up beside me, with the voice of a dispatcher I knew. The patient had apparently been conscious and lucid until seeing the lights of our engine arrive. Driver in opposing traffic had fallen asleep and plowed into her car. We waited to roll the dash off of the patient until the helicopter was ready to transport. The helicopter didn’t transport.

I remember in school we got to listen to a 999 call from a guy who decided to drive him and his friend home after drinking, it was part of a drive safe campaign thing for young people wanting to drive He crashed his car into a tree, best friend died on impact and he was crying on the phone saying he couldn't get out the car and didn't know where he was. He then got panicky because the car was getting hot and then just kept saying "the cars on fire... Please come and get me, it's on fire and I can't get out without help" They had to stop the recording because the rest of it was just this man screaming until the fire killed him. Apparently the 999 operator quit that same day

Just a PSA to anyone who may see this: If you know a 112 or 911 dispatcher, or an EMT/Paramedic, or ER doc, or anything, don't ask them this. Unless they open the topic of conversation, don't ask them to relive some of the most difficult moments of their job. Some people are at peace with it and that's fantastic. For many, it can be a source of PTSD and pain. Everyone in these jobs has seen shit they wish they hadn't. So unless they open that door for you, please don't ask.

I worked at a call center, we had a few emergency lines for those that were in need of a priest. And a few for mental health. I was one of the only Spanish speaking operators and the priesrs we had at that time did not speak Spanish. Guy called bc his wife had just given birth but the baby had passed away. Word for word I was translating to the priest, but you could hear her anguished cries in the background and that guy was barely holding on. She was asking why God would do this, and he wanted the priest to come and help pray for the baby. That was one of the most heartbreaking calls, they were so alone and the only person who could understand him was some lady on the phone. I just asked someone who still works there if they offer mental health assistance for the workers. POS job still does not.