Mitch Amatrudo-911 Abuse

"CHRONICLES OF 911 ABUSE"

Most of us have seen the show on television, hosted by that guy who used to command the USS Enterprise. The scenarios are usually similar. A child finds his Mom unresponsive from a diabetic episode, dials 911 and her life is saved. A man dangles precariously off of a tether from the 8th floor of a building under construction after tripping on a sawzall. Quick thinking co-workers immediately call 911. The "hook and ladder" arrives and the Firemen save the day. The segments end with the piano music playing as the rescuers come to visit the victims as they recuperate, and all is well once again.

The Emergency 911 system was created in 1968 by a team of telecommunications engineers in Alabama, so that there would be one universal phone number to call in case of emergency. No more having to remember the emergency phone number for your local Fire, Police, or Ambulance service. Gone forever are the florescent colored stickers that we used to have on our dial phones to remind us of these numbers if the unthinkable emergency did happen.

EVERYONE in this country 5 years of age or older knows that 911 is an EMERGENCY number. Firefighters and Police visit school children every day and provide educational programs on safety, and 911 is always discussed at these programs. 911 is NOT the number to call if you lost your car keys. It is NOT the number to call if you got in a minor car wreck last week and now decide that your back hurts. It is NOT the number to call if your child fell and skinned his knee, etc etc......

Some of you might be thinking.."why is he telling us this ? everyone knows that". False...
I am a career Firefighter in a town in Connecticut that serves a population of 50,000 people. I created this page to demonstrate how serious the 911 abuse problem has become. This report will chronicle some of the ridiculous 911 calls that my Fire Department receives.

I work about 180 days a year on a rotating shift schedule. I work at 1 of 5 Fire Stations in town. I am not always within earshot of the dispatch radio, since my station is alerted only if the call is for us. This report will document, for the most part, only those calls which are actually for my Fire Company, or those which are dispatched when I happen to be near the radio at the station or on the road in the truck. To try to calculate how small the percentage of these calls is as compared to nationwide would be just about impossible, so this should give you an example of how serious this problem has become.

Why should you care about this? Most Fire/EMS systems are similar in design. Stations or units are distributed somewhat equally geographically throughout the town or city. More densely populated areas would likely have more stations than other areas. When dispatch receives a 911 call for help, the unit or station that is closest to the address of the "emergency" is alerted and responds. If that unit is already out on another call, the next-closest station will be dispatched, and so on and so-forth. This continues until an available unit is found, and in most municipalities this process of sending the closest available unit is aided by computer. If you have a true emergency at your home, you can rest-assured that the closest unit, either in paid or volunteer communities, will respond to help ASAP.

If the closest unit to your home is out at another emergency call, it's simply bad luck for you. We do the best we can, but we still can't be in 2 places at once. You should see by now why 911 abuse is such a serious problem. Let's say that your house is on fire or your child is choking. That sucks. If the unit closest to your home is out assisting a guy having a heart attack, you will have to wait for the next-closest unit. That really sucks, but if the unit closest to you is out because of 911 abuse, now we're talking big-time suckness.

Some municipalities have policies concerning what they will or will not respond to. Others are terrified of liability and litigation so their policy is to respond to all 911 calls. This is why it is up to the citizens to use the 911 system responsibly. Speaking of liability, I am in no way trying to discourage anyone from dialing 911 if they feel they even might have an emergency. We often see people who, for example, think they might be having chest pains but are not sure if it's just indigestion or what. They'll usually think about it for a few minutes then decide to call. In many cases by the time we get there the pain is gone and the "patient" is confident that he or she is OK and refuses any further treatment. This is fine ! We like to tell people that if you are not sure if you should call 911 or not, then you probably should. This is not 911 abuse in any way. Your emergency service provider is available at all times to respond to your needs. If they are volunteers then it is their duty to do so. if they are paid, then it is their job to do so. Being a member of an emergency service is a lot like being a salesman making cold calls. They are on the phone all day but might only make 1 or 2 sales a day. We respond to calls all day, but fortunately only a small percentage of them turn out to be true emergencies. It's all part of the job.

So, with all of this being said, what follows is a true account of actual 911 calls that I personally heard being dispatched while on duty. Some of it actually sounds somewhat comical, but of course if your life or the lives of your loved ones is at stake it is no longer a laughing matter. It is up to each and every one of us to use the 911 system responsibly, and it is up to your local emergency service providers to educate the public not only about the benefits of our 911 system, but also about the possible consequences of it's abuse. This list will be updated as new "emergencies" are reported.

Woman is locked out of her apartment. Woman with a scabies outbreak. Teenager who tried to kill herself by spraying windex on her hand and licking it off. Drunks, drunks, and more drunks. Smoke coming from a chimney. Teenager who tried to kill herself by scratching her arm with a plastic fork. Woman who was involved in a motor vehicle accident 2 weeks ago and is now complaining of back pain. Man who's face is numb from sleeping on it. Baby with a "high fever" of 99. Children swimming in the river (it was during a heat wave in the summer. the caller was driving on a highway 500 feet away and conveniently used his cell phone "just in case they were in distress". This call generated a response from 2 Fire Departments, both of whom were required under protocol to launch their rescue boats, 2 local Police Departments, and the CT State Police). Woman with facial pain. Woman with an infected wound. Person who burned his/her mouth on hot food . Woman cancer patient who had a doctor appointment, but called for an ambulance to take her to the hospital instead. She had no acute medical problem. We feel that she did this to avoid a five-dollar co-pay for medicare funded "Dial-A-Ride". A man who feels cold after going to the bathroom. A man with an infected wound on his thumb.

The call about the children swimming in the river brings up another tangent for me to go on. Cell phones. I hate them. My feelings about them and how they are so badly abused and how every idiot thinks they need to have one at all times, etc. could easily be shared in a whole new page of it's own, but I will limit this editorial to how they apply to 911 abuse. People like to help out, which is nice. It's basically good of people to dial 911 on their cell phone if they think someone needs help. I'm sure that cell phones have saved a lot of lives by enabling emergency services to get the call much faster than if someone had to chase down a pay phone or start knocking on doors and stuff. My problem with them is that I feel they are over-used for this purpose. They are over-used for every other purpose as well so it all just makes sense.

I cannot even really consider it to be 911 "abuse" if someone reports a possible problem in good faith, but I still have my personal feelings on this issue. I like to think of it this way...let's go back to the GREAT old days, not so many years ago, when we did not have these little nuisances glued to our ears or permanently affixed to our waists. If you were driving down the street and something didn't look quite right, what did you do ? Most of us probably did nothing, but some would investigate further. In a rare case, the smoke that you thought you saw might actually have been someone's house burning. Then, as I mentioned above, you would find a pay phone or start knocking on doors. Nowadays though, people are picking up the cell phone at the slightest indication of a possible problem. In the past, if you saw a man laying on the ground under a shade tree in the summer, you would most likely drive by and not give it another thought. Some of you might have gotten out of your car to see if he was OK, only to find out that he just decided to take a nap. Now, people are NOT stopping to see if anyone is OK. They simply call 911 on the cell and report it. This is why so many crazy calls come in via cell phones. It's easy to do. Also, let's face it, everyone wants, at some time in their life, to dial 911. We have this curiosity to see what the person on the other end of the phone is like, and we also want to feel like we helped someone out. Having a cell phone is now the perfect excuse to make that call. Again, as I mentioned earlier, I would not dream of telling all of you never to make that call for fear of pissing off some guy on the internet. If you are not sure about then maybe the best thing to do would be to call. I like to think of it this way though...If there were no cell phones, would you make the effort to report what you think might be an emergency ? Would you find a pay phone or knock on doors? Emergency responders are always aware of the now "classic" cell phone "emergencies" that never would have been reported without cell phones. Smoke coming from a chimney (a furnace problem), Smoke in the rear of a house (a BBQ), children swimming (100 degrees), a "man down" (drunk), a person wandering around aimlessly somewhere near the corner of Main and Elm, the list goes on and on. Not that big of a deal if the stereotype of Emergency Responders sitting around all day and night playing cards and having coffee and cigarettes were true, but based on my explanation previously about the importance of letting us respond to EMERGENCIES in a timely manner, I feel that cell phones are becoming a problem.

Another slight tangent, but an important reminder as well. 911 is not the only number to call to reach your Fire or Police Department. Maybe we should all have those florescent stickers mentioned earlier on our phones again, only with the non-emergency numbers on them instead. One of the things that I'm most proud of as a Firefighter is that we have always been there for people. I remember when we were kids that my Dad (also a Firefighter) told us that if we ever had any kind of a problem to call the Fire Department, and someone will show up to help. My family will always remember the famous "flying squirrel in the house" incident that we had one night when Dad wasn't home. The Firemen came and got the little terror out of the house.

The day that we stop doing things like that is the day that I leave the Fire Service. It is that spirit of helping people that makes Firefighters special people. Whatever your NON-EMERGENCY problem is, try to solve it yourself. It feels better that way. But if you can't, call us on your local NON-EMERGENCY number and we will do what we can. It might take us a little while to get there if we're out on another emergency, but we'll do what we can, even if it's just to point you in the direction of someone who can help if we can't. Times have changed now though. With the 911 abuse that this editorial is about becoming more widespread, we are no longer available as much to help out folks with little problems.