May
05
Shouldn't 911 be trained for this?
Posted (Van Santos) in Thoughts on May-5-2009

Here is a video/news story that I found to be quite interesting, and I would like to hear what you think of this story.  

Here is the high level overview:  A teen calls 911 because her father is having a seizure.  While talking with the 911 operator the teen uses vulgarity (presumably due to the duress she is under) but the operator has an issue with the language and does not assist her.

Here is the video, it’s roughly 4:30 long.




 

So, what do you think? Was the officers response appropriate?  Was the young woman in the wrong? Shouldn’t 911 operators be trained and prepared for such situations?

I don’t fault the individual making the phone call, she was under a great amount of stress.  Now, I understand that anyone can have a bad day, and maybe that was the situation the 911 operator was facing, but if that is the case he should have asked for a day off so that others would not have to deal with is inability to deal.

Your thoughts?

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Comments:
OzSoapbox on May 6th, 2009 at 4:55 am #

WTF?

If abusing 911 isn’t a crime it damn well should be. The cop has done nothing wrong here, if you swear and carry on like a fuckwit on the phone expect to get hung up on.

Nobody cares if your dad is dying, you just don’t abuse emergency services.

If the foul mouthed princess didn’t act like a cow she wouldn’t have put her dad in danger.

I say give the officer a promotion for not taking shit from another whiny teenager with no manners.

Maybe if she wasn’t such a little shit her dad wouldn’t be where he is.

Gianna on May 6th, 2009 at 7:02 am #

I hope Oz is being sarcastic…don’t know the guy…

this was very upsetting to me…I shared it with my husband last night.

Van Santos on May 6th, 2009 at 11:50 am #

@OzSoapBox – just to clarify, are you being sarcastic?

@Gianna – Personally, I found it upsetting as well.

OzSoapbox on May 6th, 2009 at 4:30 pm #

hmm I think I was just a bit tired and grumpy yesterday.

To clarify:

The cop could have definately handled it better, hanging up on abusive callers is acceptable in any telephony profession but emergency is probably a bit of a grey area.

I still think swearing at emergency operators is not on.

Here in Australia we’ve had ambulance workers bashed and debri hurled at ambulnaces whilst ambos attend to people in public places.

Any agression towards emergency services just makes my blood boil.

Van Santos on May 6th, 2009 at 9:32 pm #

Thanks for clearing it up, Oz!

I think the 911 operator was out of line, especially when he ended up swearing at her. He should have been significantly more professional.

Now, while I think she was under – extreme stress – I think she also went over the life. Instead of calling back and making it a personal issue (or that is the way I took it) and simply state her case.

Now – that said – I’m also saying this not being in her situation and not understanding what she was feeling.

I also agree that aggression toward EMS is unwarranted. When emotion gets involved, they it is a no win situation for all involved.

Again, not being in either situation, I have the ability to say what “I” would have done but… in reality… I don’t know that I would have been better or worse than either of these two.

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