I felt so bad about accidentally calling 911 that I'm afraid I may have conveyed the message that there really was an emergency and that some evildoer was coercing me to lie and say it's nothing. I profusely apologized for my mistake and the friendly, affable operate laughed and said, "It happens all the time."
It happens all the time!
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37 comments:
You'll be charged with wasting police dime.
Fragile old lady testing the system works for my nanna.
'Call anytime!'
Hmm, an a feature that may save your life, that they don't tell you about, and likely will only use by accident. I guess they thought that through.
A good and competent designer would not create something important that is so easily used by mistake.
911 was invented in Omaha.
What I was trying to do was turn down the volume on the podcast I was listening to because I didn't want to bother my husband as I walked past where he was sleeping. A whooping emergency sound came on and I saw that it was counting down to calling 911, beginning with 3. I rushed to find some way to cancel. I think I hit the word "cancel" (or something) but nothing I could find would turn it off before the call went through.
I really was afraid the police might come over to check that I wasn't in trouble.
I think the operator talked to me a little longer to try to see if there was someone coercing me and that if I'd said anything at all weird, the police would have checked on me..
I had the same thing almost happen to me once when I was trying to change the volume with my phone in its holster.
I kept pressing the side button when I meant to press a volume button and, suddenly, my phone went “whoop, whoop, whoop”; I was able to cancel it in time, though.
Althouse- I've come very close to doing the same! I use the wrong button to turn down the volume. If you can see the screen when you are doing it, you see a countdown starts.
There has been a meme going around saying that if you need to call 911, but it may be dangerous because of another person in the room with you, call 911 and order a pizza.
Apparently the 911 operators are trained to understand this is a signal that you need help. You give your address as if you were ordering for delivery and voila, the cops show up.
Is it an urban legend? I don't know. It may have morphed from an urban legend to a generally good idea adopted by 911 operators.
David, I've heard that 911 originated in Haleyville AL. At least that's what my relatives that live there tell me.
--Rt1Rebel
Dispatchers have heard it all. Why do you seem surprised by their competency?
My Android phone has a "Do Not Disturb" feature that stops either sound or visual notification of a text or call. This isn't with the other notification settings, but sits directly under volume settings. So if your swipe is half an inch off while turning down the volume, the phone becomes a non-phone.
In 1968, the number was agreed upon. AT&T chose the number 9-1-1, which was simple, easy to remember, dialed easily, and because of the middle 1, indicating a special number (see also 4-1-1 and 6-1-1), worked well with the phone systems in place at the time (which 999 would not).[8] At the time, this announcement only affected the Bell System telephone companies; independent phone companies were not included in the emergency telephone plan. However, Bob Gallagher of the Alabama Telephone Company decided he wanted to implement it ahead of AT&T, and the company chose Haleyville, Alabama, as the location.[11]
On February 16, 1968, Alabama Speaker of the House Rankin Fite placed the first-ever 9-1-1 call from Haleyville City Hall, to Congressman Tom Bevill, at the city's police station. Bevill was accompanied by Gallagher and Alabama Public Service Commission director Eugene "Bull" Connor. The phone used to answer the first 9-1-1 call, a bright red model, is now in a museum in Haleyville, while a duplicate phone is still in use at the police station.[11]
Public notice on highway
AT&T made its first implementation in Huntington, Indiana, the hometown of J. Edward Roush, who sponsored the federal legislation to establish the nationwide system, on March 1, 1968
"Althouse- I've come very close to doing the same! I use the wrong button to turn down the volume. If you can see the screen when you are doing it, you see a countdown starts."
Yes, I saw that but couldn't see how to cancel. I didn't have my reading glasses on, so I was slow focusing on the screen. I touched something I thought said "cancel" -- twice, I think. Didn't stop it.
https://madison.com/bogus-info-from-call-center-cost-police-time/article_8d402e00-db02-5893-b1ba-8ebfc5ec6200.html
"There has been a meme going around saying that if you need to call 911, but it may be dangerous because of another person in the room with you, call 911 and order a pizza. Apparently the 911 operators are trained to understand this is a signal that you need help. You give your address as if you were ordering for delivery and voila, the cops show up."
Well, once everyone's heard that, it doesn't work anymore. You should just say something weird, I think, then respond "yes" or "no" to the things the operator is saying, which will be something like "Do you need help?" "Is someone there threatening you," etc. Say "yes" or "no" as applicable.
Anyway, the "pizza" thing was never right:
https://www.nbc4i.com/news/u-s-world/law-enforcement-warn-not-to-call-911-to-order-pizza-even-if-its-a-real-emergency/
"Law enforcement wants you to know that calling 911 to order a pizza in the event of an emergency is not recommended, contrary to reports on social media. When you dial 911, your call is answered by operators trained to help you but they’re not trained to recognized code words like “pepperoni pizza.” It was a Super Bowl ad using the real 911 call of a domestic violence victim that first brought the practice into the public eye. Now years later, it’s become viral again with a graphic shared all over social media stating, “If you need to call 911 but are scared to because someone is in the room, ask for a pepperoni pizza.” The post suggests you call and say “can I order a pizza,” like a secret code meaning someone’s in danger. But here’s the problem: 911 operators are not aware of this so-called code or any code. Last week, the Franklin County Sheriff’s Office shared a post debunking this myth. “…if you call 911 and ask to order a pizza, the dispatcher will inform you that you have called the emergency line and not a pizza restaurant. When you continue trying to order a pizza, the Comm. Tech. is going to figure out that there is a problem. (Unless you’re the drunk college kid that does this three times a week.) The dispatcher will start asking questions that can be answered with a simple yes or no. Or they may say things like, If someone is injured, ask for mushrooms.'”"
It happened to me twice!
So the lesson to be learned: Better to just wake Meade than to call 911 and wake him anyway.
My wife was just telling me about a friend who did the same thing. She also has it set up so that a 911 call generates emails to her four children. She soon got four concerned phone calls.
call 911 and order a pizza.
That originated with Nick Danger, Third Eye. If you say "no anchovies" at the end it means you really want the pizza.
The Untied Kingdom, inventors of civilization, had a 999 system in place 30 years before the US, inventors of the telephone.
The attack of the iPhones. That must be one of the HAL9000 models.
I've done it twice. Both times I was getting out of my car with my hands full and holding the phone awkwardly. The first time I actually talked to someone and they verified my address and a talked a few seconds more to make sure I wasn't under duress, I guess, and the second time I was able to cancel it somehow. Yeah, I never knew about the feature until I accidentally used it.
Happened to my wife when putting on new case for her phone. It wasn't on quite right and (apparently) pressed /held the buttons in the magic combination. Probably sounded weirder than your call.
W: 'What's that noise?'
W: 'Whos talking?'
W: (to kids) 'Shut up, I can't hear!'
W: (yelling to kids) 'I SAID SHUT UP!'
W: 'Oh it's my phone'
W: 'Hello?'
911: What's your emergency
W: '911? Right, pull the other one'
W: (Hangs up)
Does 911 know the kind of phone that is making the call, I wonder? Hope so.
I don't have a mobile phone for precisely this reason.
Morse distress calls were CQD, then SOS, then QRRR. I don't know what it is today.
Yea it’s a horrible user experience. I thought it was calling friends and tried to test it. Nope. Dumb apple.
Did the the 911 operator ask you what you are wearing?
When the poor man was fatally wounded by a psychotic hiker on the Appalachian Trail in Southwest Virginia, he activated this system and that is how rescue found him. A good system to enable if you're out in the woods.https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/05/knife-wielding-alleged-murderer-on-the-appalachian-trail-is-the-stuff-of-literal-nightmares.html
Good thing you didn't activate the auto-destruct. You know about the auto-destruct, right?
Hmm, an a feature that may save your life, that they don't tell you about, and likely will only use by accident. I guess they thought that through.
Rather like the 737MAX.
Blogger Ann Althouse said..."I really was afraid the police might come over to check that I wasn't in trouble."
Silly police. Don't they know Althouse never answers the door?
"Rather like the 737MAX."
Yeah...
"Wouldn't it be"
Smarter to pack protection yourself, and not count on taxpayer paid resources to rescue you.
Aren't you out there hiking in the wilderness to get away from civilization and learn the rougher law of nature? There's bad guys, you're miles from civilization, how will you protect yourself?"
The victim was a veteran with PTSD out on a long trip with a companion (a woman who was wounded but ran six miles on the trail to get away). The maniac had been tracked on the trail by hikers from NC into TN, was arrested in TN after brandishing a machete, but had to be let go because the through-hikers would not stay to testify against him (they "wanted to hike"). And then a couple of weeks later, he murdered.The hikers who would not give evidence have a lot to answer for. I don't know whether the victim had a gun or not, but you can get neutralized by a machete before you could ever get a pistol out.
I had a friend who last four digits were 9116. I once started to dial the number without the prefix and got 911 by mistake. The local police sent a cruiser to my driveway. It was embarrassing. I had to let them in so they could check that I hadn't harmed anyone.
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