911: An Experience with 911 Emergency

Recently my daughter had the occasion to call 911. It wasn't by her choice as the situation wasn't dire. We had always been led to believe that you ONLY call 911 when you thought the situation might be of a life and death nature. This just didn't happen to one of those moments.

We had been having a lot of thunder storms lately, and while outside, her boyfriend noticed that a power line was down and dangling in the trees of a neighbor's yard. He suggest that my daughter call the power company, as the lines belong to them, and they're usually very good about responding quickly to maintain their lines. This time they didn't. They informed her that their workers were unavailable at the moment, but they would send someone out as soon as possible.

Ten minutes hadn't passed by, when he stormed back into the house and told her to call the fire department. The power company hadn't yet arrived and the sparks from the downed line had set the tree branches ablaze. Unfortunately, she did not have the phone number to the fire department handy by her phone. She quickly got out her phone book and to her dismay, could not find the listing for the fire department in the front pages, where one would think they'd be able to find such an important number. Again, the situation wasn't dire. Due to a few days of rain, she didn't think that the trees would become engulfed in full blaze anytime soon, but it was imperative that the fire department come put out the small blaze.

Still not being able to find the number to the nearest precinct, she resorted to calling 911. Even though it wasn't a matter of life and death, still, it would not be good if the fire jumped to the nearest homes. After dialing 911, she only got a recording and was told to remain on the line if it was an "emergency" and someone would get to her call shortly. Well, in her mind it wasn't a drastic emergency, so she hung up the phone.

They did call her back immediately and after describing the situation, they promptly notified the fire department. Of course the fire department couldn't do much, as this was an electrical fire with live wires, but they did remain on the scene until the power company arrived to shut off the power going through the lines.

What we found very strange, aside from the phone book not having the number to the fire department on a page that would be noticeable at a glance, but that she actually got a "recording" when calling 911. Being that this was the first time anyone in our family ever needed the services of 911, we'd always thought that there would be a real live person on the other end.... after all, 911 is known all over North America as being the number to call for emergencies.

After much thought, we realized that many people must abuse the system, causing a need to have a recording answer the calls. In this way, they can screen the calls if there isn't a true emergency. This way too, they are not tying up the services of our much needed fire, police and EMS departments on situations that don't exactly require them. They can also be sure that they are sending the correct department to where they are needed.

I'm sure we have all heard of situations where people will call 911, tying up the lines, for the most mundane and inappropriate reasons. Sadly, these are the very people that have abused the system to the extent that it now opts for recorded messages. It is probably one of the main reasons why we hear horror stories regarding 911 calls. Hopefully the system can improved over time, so that it services the community in a more manageable way. More importantly, hopefully people can learn to use 911 only when the situation requires them to do so.

By the way, I have since checked the phone book from cover to cover, to see if I could find the number to our nearest fire department, for future reference should I need it. Beside "fire department", in the blue pages where they list important numbers regarding city services, is the number "911". So, I suppose that no matter how large or small the fire is, one still needs to call 911 Emergency. So, now we know!