The brighter the moon, the crazier it gets.

I believe in the myth that when there is a full moon, it's crazy. Working 911 for the past few years have strengthened my beliefs. The few days before and after the full moon are usually filled with our local crazies calling and being crazy. I have had the honors of talking to many crazy people in my career, and although they think they are calling for true emergencies and we handle them with seriousness it makes for a good laugh after the fact.

My favorite 10-96 (police code for mental/crazy) calls include the older lady who called 911 saying that her neighbors were hiding raccoons under her car, and sending their cats to poop on her porch. PD gets there and there is neither of the sort going on. Or the lady who calls 911 frantic and goes on an entire story of how she was kidnapped by relatives, brought to a hotel room, and they used a Hoover Home Liposuction machine and dumped her fat in the hotel room sink. Yeah that's a bit out there.
We have a regular crazy who calls us every once in a while, he sings us songs and talks about random things that happened back during Vietnam, sometimes he gets very aggressive and he's accused me of being apart of the war crimes.
We haven't heard from one of our other 'regulars' so I assume he's moved out of town and is now blessing another 911 center with his antics. He called one night called me a Doctor, and proceeded to tell me that he doesn't need to bring his gun on the bus because he always has his harmonica.

Now, even though most of our contact with these callers is humorous they are tying up 911 lines and police resources with their crazy reports, as we send an officer to check on them each time. And I also want to know, what happens that makes you that crazy?
I sure am getting a lot of tips from these folks for when I get older and retire. I am sure to be a pain for some police department somewhere! Ha ha.

Common Sense

Working on this end of the radio I have had the opportunity to talk to a wide variety of people, albeit most in their worst moments of life, and one thing that stands out when I reflect on most of these encounters is that there is a wide range of Common Sense.

Many people I have spoken with lack Common Sense, for example I have had someone call 911 asking what someone recently arrested (within minutes) bond amount was. No ma'am this is not the jail, nor is it information, you will have to find someone with a phone book for that number.

Or the person who calls 911 (I would like to remind you 911 is for 'emergencies') because they locked themselves out of their car. I obtain their name, address, phone number, and then what color and type of car they have, next up is the question "Is your vehicle RUNNING?", some people answer straight no, some people beat around the bush and say it was running but shut itself off (yeah, okay.) well in 'big city' they are running calls after calls and their policy is only to go for running cars, or cars with a child locked inside. So, after explaining to the person the police cannot help them and pointing them towards a locksmith, we disconnect. Moments later another 911 call comes in, this time the person tells me the car is running. Now, you see I just spoke with you and you already told me all of your information, unfortunately we still can't help you out. Call 911 again and I will sign a complaint against you for misuse of the 911 system. Thanks and have a great day.

More Common Sense woes came this winter, where most of our state was hit with a blizzard. Now, I know I don't watch the news much but I do have facebook, a smartphone, computer, etc. and I know most people in this day and age have one or more. And those who don't have any nifty gadgets that us tech-savvy people do I know there is always the print newspaper. Now, the meteorologists predicted a crap-load of snow starting at a specific date and time, and warned everyone not to travel unless absolutely necessary. So when you and 75 other people start to get stuck on an impassable area of highway and call 911 to get un-stuck I am not sure what you were expecting us to send you. Our police are driving around in cars just like you, and up until you called they were nice and warm in their stations because they cant' go driving around because of the snow! I really wish they could have asked everyone what was so important that they were out driving at 10 pm at night to get themselves stuck in the blizzard.
I mean it was so bad we had officers out in snow plows still getting stuck..

Well. I am done rambling for a bit, I had neglected this blog as well as reading many blogs I follow. I promise to try and keep up with it as much as possible!

Until next time!

Global Warming!

So a few days ago in about 24 hour period we saw Ice, Snow, Rain, Storms and a Tornado!

As the days move on and it gets colder everyone needs to remember to drive smart! We handled a couple bad accidents during that 24 hours and it was during the ice and snow part. And it really wasn't "that bad" to be considered any accumulation. Be aware of the conditions, drive safe. Too many people loose lives during bad weather when they could have stayed at home and waited it out until road crews could salt and scrape!

Hopefully this year there are less bad accidents, but comparing year to date statistics from last year it's not looking too good for our area.

Drive Smart, Drive Safe.

Oh yeah, Happy Thanksgiving!

In Case Of Emergency, Break Glass.

Okay, fellow dispatchers, I need you to chime in here.

Let's say there was a catastrophic emergency in the area that would increase call volume, radio traffic, and mayhem in a center. Most facilities are staffed at minimum but have room for extra people (more consoles). Does anyone have a procedure sent in place that would call out to the off-duty dispatchers for an 'emergency hire' to get the center staffed to max. Since no one would be able to call through a long list of employees to hire in what would you do?

Well, during such unforeseen event I happened to go into work to assist during time of emergency, and boy we needed it. But Monday Morning quarterbacking has kicked in and people are complaining that "why did he get paid to go in on OT no one else got calls" yadda yadda. Frankly I didn't see anyone else show up, a few stayed over but not everyone. We kicked ass for 6 hours until problems were resolved and radios got quiet.

But, is that bad that I went into 'work' on my day off? Apparently I am the only one that enjoys what I do and 'wishes' that I was in on the big emergency calls. They will regret the day I am gone and working the streets and no longer working the radio because it seems that I am the only one here willing to go that extra mile!

Anyhow, I'm done rambling, I am tired for I have clocked 36 hours of OT in the last 3 days, see what I mean?

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!

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!

Mmm, Donuts!

This was some time ago when I first started. I get a call from an elderly female and this is how it went:

Me: 911 Where is the emergency!
Caller: Yes yes I woke up and came in the living room and there is a squirrel on my table eating my donut! I don't know how it could have got in here!

Really?! What the hell.

Of course, it's the departments policy to send an officer to all 911 calls as weird or stupid as they could be, so patrol went on over to investigate the donut bandit and sure enough there was a half eaten donut sitting on her coffee table. Unfortunately the bandit got away and hid elsewhere in her house.

The officer called in and let us know that the doors and windows were all shut but there were many holes in the walls and the donut loving squirrel snuck in that way.

Gotta love this job!