911 is the emergency number here in Canada if you’re unfamiliar. 112, 999, etc if you’re elsewhere IIRC.
Do you remember the first time you had to use it?
What were you thinking, feeling?
First time I had to use it in earnest I was working front end at a post office and there was a random guy doing maintenance behind me in the back area of the office. Barely said a word to him, he barely said a word to me. I was fairly busy and he seemed kinda gruff.
Bit later all of a sudden he taps me on the shoulder pretty aggressively, I turned and was getting ready to give him some not-polite words about touching me like that and how he better not damn well do that again but I stopped when I saw the look on his face.
He just says, “call 911.”
I look blankly at him, getting some mental whiplash, and just dumbly go, “what?”
Him, “I’m having a fucking heart-attack, CALL 911!”
That got through so I called them, gave them the info. He went back into the office and laid down.
I was a bit in shock myself and just looked at the customers in line in front of me and said to the woman, “he’s having a heart attack, sorry.”
Honestly think I could’ve handled the situation better, at least gone back and been more empathetic but I was caught between him, customers, and making sure I was visible so I could wave the paramedics to where they needed to go.
The post office there was tucked into the back corner and most of the store didn’t even know about it until I told them later that day.
Never heard anything after, no clue if the guy survived, or not. Didn’t see him again either way.
You?
First time I recall ever having to call 911 for what I thought was an emergency was when I heard breaking glass followed by seeing smoke pouring out of an apartment complex across the street late at night. No alarms were going off, which was weird. I was in a bit of a mild panic when I called them, and blanked hard when they asked me for my phone number. They must have gotten it from caller ID fine though since they were able to call me back later – but I felt really stupid to have blanked on that… By the time the fire truck got there, the smoke was already long gone. In retrospect, I should’ve recorded a clip with my phone – but I wasn’t expecting it to just go away. When I was called back, I went out and explained what I’d saw and pointed out the location. They couldn’t find anything amiss, but after discussion concluded that what I’d probably seen was someone vaping (out of sight) in the (open air) hallway. They weren’t sure what the glass was, but I found shards in the street the next day – I think someone chucked a bottle into the middle of the road.
I’ve had to call 911 a bunch of times since then (“911” shows up on 28 different days in my journal), including for myself twice to get to a hospital. The first time I had to call 911 for myself I couldn’t find the keypad on my smartphone to enter “911” since it had gotten shuffled to somewhere I wasn’t expecting in an update. I found it eventually, and thankfully the issue was just my first panic attack rather than an actual heart attack…
Most of the rest of the times I’ve had to call were about traffic accidents (or sometimes for people who seemed to have lost touch with reality) while living in an apartment in a downtown area. Worst was when someone was not moving, covered in blood and lying in the middle of the road after a car crash. An ambulance came and took him away about as quick as you could hope for in such circumstances, but looking at him lying there… that guy was probably already dead. Police were out there for hours afterwards with tape blocking off the road and photographing the scene and everything.