Saturday, July 31, 2010

Spellcheck

When you're in the midst of typing information into a hot call sometimes your fingers are working too fast and, every once in a while, you will make a typo. Too bad you can't go back and change misspellings!

Typos are great, sometimes completely innocent misspellings and then there are the 'what the hell is that supposed to mean'. In the end they make for a good laugh.

For example, A warrant add-on I placed into LEADS (What we use in the state of IL to run for wants/warrants, drivers license and vehicle information) the address I typed was supposed to be 'washington' street, instead I typed 'wsdjomhypm' and didn't notice it for about 15 minutes until I pulled the paper off the printer. Whoops!

Most recently I type 'offender is on herion and alcolhol' into a mental transport call. Sound it out, for the rest of the night we were talking crazy!

Or you just type too damn fast and instead of typing a full sentence you just leave out half the conversation.

For an EMS run I typed "Pain in the lower apartment".. What I really meant was "Pain in the lower abdomen, caller in lower apartment".
Hey, I was close!

Sunday, July 18, 2010

Summer Heat

They say with heat comes more violence.
So far we haven't seen that much more calls for service going on, which is very good for the community, not so good for keeping occupied at work.

I haven't really had anything 'out of the ordinary' to post here, as much of it has been the same mundane calls. But, one call sits on the top of my mind still..

It was about 11 PM and I took a 911 call from a residence on the far west side of the county, on the other line was a panicked 5 year old boy. "I just woke up and I can't find my mommy" he says. I ask him his address and he knows the numbers and that matches up on my ALI screen, I ask him if he knows where his mom is and he has no idea. "Just me and mommy live here" he says.
I ask if he knows what his mom's name is, he gives it and says something that caught me off guard "Can you look her up" and for a moment, and with the panic in his voice it sounded like he asked "Can you wake her up". My heart sank "What was that" I asked, and got the clarification I had hoped for. I stayed on the line for a few minutes until the Deputy arrived. The front door was locked and the little guy couldn't figure out how to get it unlocked, so the Deputy tried the back door, and was able to make entry.
Moments later the Deputy clears the call, "10-8 found mom, she was asleep in her room on her bed."

Now, albeit a strange call, I was glad it was a good ending and Mom wasn't off partying or whatever else could have been going on. But man that would have been a hell of a wake up call for the police to show up in your bedroom!