IAmA Former 911 Operator ... I'll share everything.

How long does it take to trace a location from a call?

BEST QUESTION ON HERE!

Okay, so when you call 911 - It's not instant. Sometimes (androids, iphones) it can be near instant - but other times, it takes 2-5 minutes. The first "location" data we get is the cell tower you call from, then any gps coordinates. The cell tower may not even be the nearest available, but it's just the one your 911 call was routed too.

Also, if your phone doesn't have GPS, it can take 30mintues to 24 hours for the phone company to trace it.

If you ever call 911, wait for them to say whatever and STATE YOUR LOCATION. That's more important then what is going on. Trust me.

Woah. That's crazy. Have you ever had a call and got disconnected and thought "I don't know where the hell they were at?"

A few times, but I usually was able to figure it out or get a general location.

Well, if it's landline it's instant, right? I remember being an idiot 6 year old kid and wanted to call 911 and hang up right when I dialed it. They called back and I was in trouble. Ended up hiding under the table where my dad couldn't reach me.

Yup! They are instant!

I didn't know this, but now that I do it seems pretty damn important. Are there any other small things you can tell us that would help immensely in an emergency?

Location location location. That's the most important.

Followed by What. Don't gives us the whole "HE DID THIS HE DID THAT" all we need to know is "They are bleeding because they got in a fight"

Save everything else for the cop. We don't really need it. I mean, unless they are actively fleeing the scene and you are chasing them or something...

Also, if its medical, Location, followed by symptoms. Remaining calm is the hardest thing to do in an emergency, but its the best thing to do.

what is the most heart wrenching call you've ever received?

I heard a woman get beat by her husband. It was sad - I could hear her scream in pain. When the officers got there, she had bled all over the house and nearly died.

wow. how did that effect you?

I don't even...

I could never imagine hitting my Significant other... That call made me realize the reality of domestic violence and abuse. I never realized how bad it was before.

Ever have someone die while you were on the phone with them?

Yes. My very first call I've ever had, the guy died. I heard him take his laugh "gasp" for air.

What happened to him? Did you wonder if this was "the job for you" after your very first phone call involved a death?

Nope. I knew it was.

It was interesting and cool at the same time >.>

What made you stay with it after your first phone call ended in death?

The thrill. I mean... It was cool. Something that not everyone else did. :3

Did you enjoy telling your friends about your favorite stories?

Of course! I hardly get to tell anyone about my stories. ._.

What kind of effect did that have on you?

It gave me a whole new perspective on how people can die and how valuable life is.

Was this the only death you experienced or 1 of many?

I think I had 12 deaths - I lost count after like the 4th or 5th.

I tried with every one of those to help save them. Sometimes you just can't save people :C

Wow, what were some of the causes of death and how did you handle the situations?

Preface: Every call had an EMS, Fire, Rescue and Cops sent out

Choking - The guy was alone and I heard him choking. I tried to help walk him through doing heimlick using a chair, but the last thing i heard was the chair slide, then a thud

Heart attack - The family was screaming his skin was yellow and he was cold. I tried to help them through CPR, but the guy was too big to get down off his bed (he was 400 lbs). You can't do CPR on a bed.

Drowning (infant) - That was really tough. I honestly didn't know what to say, and it was a very vague call for me.

Stabbing - The guy took his last breath on the phone. He asked me to pray to god for him. I'm not the same religion as he was, but I did it anyway. I said "God, please help this man through to pull through while I get help to him."

You mentioned you were in college while having this job, was it hard for you at a pretty young age listening to people die? How did this affect you and your personal life outside of work?

It was hard the first time. Getting a death call on the first day was just... Damn. But - it made me wake up and live life. I mean... really. I realized that day, we all have our time. I may as well help people the best I can and live life to its fullest.

*do you ever pick up your cell/home phone as 911 emergency response?

Twice. Once, I was half asleep - the second time I did it out of habit because I had received about 100 calls the shift before

besides the hymen destruction you mentioned earlier, any stray sex stories come to mind?

Unfortunately yes. (other than the one about the woman having sex)...

We did have a woman call about her "man" not paying her for her services....

She was a prostitute, and she was arrested (She literally asked the cops to go with her).

There was another one where the man got stuck. Literally.

What happened to the nonpaying client?

Was he fucking her in the ear?

That is the second time I've typed ear sex on reddit. ಠ_ಠ

We never caught him. She told us that he wasn't satisfied because of her bumps. (Dispatch was near the jail, and the jail sup called me over to hear this first hand).

I didn't ask about the bumps but she kept insisting she deserved to be paid for him seeing her naked. It was disgusting.

Gah!

what happened to the stuck fella

They transported him to the ER... They had some sort of injection I think.

• Weirdest Call?

• Scariest Call?

• Were there free doughnuts, or are those only for cops?

Some guy thought he broke his GF (like internal bleeding or something)- It was her first time for Sex. Cherry popped.

Some guy said he saw our cop car and he didn't see the cop. We couldn't reach him on the radio. It was scary, as the guy kept telling us their was a shooter in the area with an AK47.

Creepy and scary.

Yes. Lots of doughnuts.

Our cops would kiss our asses.

What happened to the cop?

He was peeing in the woods. >.>

And then he was added to the Sexual Offender registry, right. Right??

Nah. Each officer has their "Places".

Most carry toilet paper in their cars too.

I THOUGHT THIS ONLY HAPPENS ON TV!

When you gotta go, you gotta go. Especially at 3 am in the middle of freaking no where. He had to go. >.>

OH! RELEVANT QUESTION!

I see cops sitting about in their cars in parking lots or various parked spots in the middle of the fucking night, so what the hell are they doing there? Due to the whole Doppler effect and how speed-guns work, there's no way they're trying to catch speeders.

I imagine they're rushing to do paperwork before shift switch.

Most likely, they are writing reports.

Reports suck. Ask any officer. They could just also be waiting for the next call they get. I knew one guy who would sleep. It varies per officer.

I stumbled across a sleeping officer in a church parking lot one evening, which is why I inquired. He had paperwork in the seat next to him, but I didn't have the heart to wake him.

I would have. For his safety.

Have you ever been in a situation where you have to talk someone down from committing suicide?

Yes... I wasn't trained to do it and we usually transfer them to the suicide hotline (unless they are hurting or have caused harm, then we send police - not medics until police clear) but there were multiple times the suicide hotline was offline.

Wow, thats pretty incredible. On a more personal note, and i hope you don't mind me asking, has anyone called in that you personally knew? I would imagine that would be nerve wracking.

Yes - They didn't know it was me. I had about 10 people I knew personally... When they panic, they never realize things like your operator name, your voice, or sometimes who they are calling (someone thought he was calling a 911 in texas, but we were on the east coast)

So, how did you take it? Did you act professional, or did you let them know who you were? Because i can imagine, that knowing the 911 operator can make a person feel as if they are in 'better' hands.

You have to take every call serious... I never let a person know - they honestly didn't care.

People don't call 911 to chat. Some called the sheriff's office to chat, but they were crazy. I did try to get personal with everyone by saying things like "It will be okay, everything will be fine" and "I need you to calm down" - but being personal when a person is screaming for help is hard.

I was trained not to tell people "it will be ok." In fact, things could end very badly. I was taught to focus on reassuring the caller that help is on the way and, keeping safety in mind, guide the caller in doing things that will hopefully help his/her outcome.

Apologies for jumping in late. I always miss the good AMAs.

This.

We were trained that too, but the "It will be okay" was usually directed to people who were family members. I don't think I said that literally, because It will be okay did sound harsh, but I would say something like "The help will be there as soon as they can, In the mean time I need you to ....... to help your _______"

I said the "it will be okay" just to summarize some of the things I said.

How can I call 911 in another location like the man from Texas did? For example if I was on the phone with someone in another state and there was an emergency and they couldn't call the police themselves?

Call the non emergent lines for that department.

There are things called the trunk lines (10 digits, (xxx) xxx-xxxx) which are the lines which go to 911, but you can't really get those numbers.

• How often do you get phone calls? Is it a once per half hour sort of thing or what?

• Are most calls "important" (like someone dying or a robbery or something) or are most calls stuff like, "There's some shit on the road. Someone needs to come pick it up."

I've asked too many questions on this AMA.

It depends - we had a train derailment once, we got about 100 calls in about 10 minutes (for 5 people), which ramped up to 500+ per 10 minutes. Sometimes, we can go 4-6 hours without a single call. I think I worked one night shift and took two calls that night (8 hours)

Eh it's half and half. Honestly, I lived in BFE - so most calls were over blown.

What is BFE

Bum fuck egypt (Middle of nowhere)

[deleted]

That's what dispatchers are for! Just call 911 anytime you need them. :)

If you dont understand what the person is saying, say he has a heavy accent, who would you get to help figure out what the person is saying? Would you just kinda infer what he was trying to say?

Ahhhh yes. We had this a lot.

There is a thing called language line - if they speak hardly any english, we get language line up and they will translate any language. (to help with calls).

Normally, you can figure out what they want though, even with a heavy accent.

What the? How the hell does that work?

Idk... Its some company that hires a bunch of translators.

What was the funniest call?

The funniest call was when someone called as they were having sex. I didn't realize they were having sex. I thought they were in pain and needed help. ._.

Did you send an ambulance?

No, on call back she stated "OH I'M FINE gasp DON'T WORRY ABOUT ME"

I turned bright red and have never felt more embarrassed in the Sheriff's office ever.

Why did they even call in the first place?

Some people don't know how to lock their phones, some don't know they are laying on it...

It was an accident they called (or so they said), and I'm not sure how she did it, unless she left the phone under him or she had it in her hand... but meh. >.>

Lots of smart phones have an "Emergency Call" button that automagically dials 911 if you hold it down for a bit. Most of these are available even when the screen is locked.

Yup!

Is it true that 911 Operators are trained to respond to 911 calls in disguise? I heard a story about a woman whose husband took her hostage and then made her order them a pizza, but she called 911 instead and spoke as if she was ordering a pizza. The operator apparently knew to ask if she was in immediate danger. Confirm/deny?

Very true. It depends on the Operator, but everyone in our office would have figured it out.

• What's a normal day like? Is there a normal day?
• How many calls do you take a day on average?

It was an 8 hour shift, and no. It was so abnormal. So many things you can't be trained on... It's hard. Try remembering to teach a person how to give CPR under severe pressure.

It would vary... I had one where I took 2, and another where I took 300 (football night)

Care to elaborate on "football night"?

Homecoming I think... We had a university in county limits.

Thanks for doing this IAmA! Out of idle curiosity, do you have any specific religious beliefs? You touched on the subject further up the thread, and got me wondering.

I'd have to call myself an Atheist. I respect everyone's religion though, and nonetheless - I've read the entire bible and know why I disagree with it.

But as I stated earlier, sometimes (even as an atheist), I do things that I don't believe in to help others (prayer). Maybe I don't get anything from prayer or believe in it, but he did and I wanted to give him some hope.

It's been proven that people who have hope in critical conditions are more likely to pull out. I wouldn't be able to live with myself if I would have told him I was Atheist instead of helping him.

How do you handle a troll?

We tell them we are tracing the line and sending the police. Then I go back to sleep.

Do you?

It depends. If they call from a land line, absolutely.

If they call from a cell phone and sound like they are in trouble or danger, then we have to.

Do you go back to sleep?

It depends. If it's slow. Yeah.

This makes me feel safe.

You say that, but the phones ring loud, and there are at least 2-3 other people there at all times.

Are you allowed to?

As long as we answer the phones.

Can you text 911?

No.

How would you respond to a call about something like this? (maybe NSFW)

We send out our animal control of course! They wouldn't understand, so they'd probably shoot it and try to take it for dinner (bfe department).

Aside from Super Troopers, we had a high number of calls about cattle in the road.

Which call (or type of call) put you under the most stress? I read you had to help deliver babies, so I'm assuming that's pretty high on the list.

Yeah that and child abductions. Those were the two most stressful calls ever.

The third was the one where the officer didn't answer his radio and we got the call about the shooter & the cop car abandoned (he was peeing in the woods).

The fourth was probably the call where we had a 4 car wreck and I had to send 5 EMS trucks and the helicopter. The thing was, we only had 11 ems trucks in the county (during night shift, 15 during the day - 500 sq miles i think) so with that, we ended up having people wait for the ems for an hour or more. That sucked too.

It seems like any child-related call would just plain suck to get.

Yeah.. Or infant calls.

what is the weirdest thing someone has called you up for?

They wanted a back massage.

so... did you ....?

I sent a deputy out... lol But he requested one.

I live by myself. If I'm taking my vitamins in the morning and they go down the wrong way and I start choking to death but manage to dial 911 before passing out (and all you hear is some weird noises), what are my chances of being rescued before I die, and will it matter if I leave my apartment door unlocked and make sure my phone is in my pocket before I take my vitamins?

If you have a smart phone, it depends on how well of a GPS signal we get. If you have a home phone, most departments have a policy where an officer has to go to the home.

Always make sure your apartment door is unlocked, and the best thing to do is keep dialing 911 with the dispatcher on the line. The noises, a lot of time we attribute to just weird noises. We always called back, but if you keep pressing 911 (we know that sound) it may give you a better chance.

I'm sorry I can't answer this better. If it were me, (since I live alone as well), I'd run down and beat on every neighbors door. I'd hope one of them were home to call for help for me.

The best thing to do as well is to use a chair, and do the heimlich on your self.

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/001983.htm

Learn that, also talk to the red cross and see about classes. (It's always good to know)

If I was interested in doing this as a job, how should I go about it? Who do I talk to/where would I apply?

Call the department on the non emergent line. Ask to speak to the captain, and ask how you apply. It's on the job training, and no special skills required (other than multitasking, computer skills, speech and quick thinking).

hows the pay?

12-13/hour

How many regulars did/do you have?

How did your department handle 'chatters'?

We had one... He called at least twice a week. Pretty sure he had PTSD. It really depended on how busy we were. I lived out in BFE where there was still a "driving while black" charge, so usually it wasn't so busy. In any case, if they were just "chatting", we'd usually tell them we had to go or to hold.

For the guy that called every week+ , everyone else was mean, I tried to be empathetic for a while

Could you give us more on the guy with PTSD? What kind of things did he even say? How did you handle it?

He was from Vietnam I think.. He always had the weirdest stories. >.>

I don't really like talking about him if you don't mind... His stories can be identified to him.

Have you ever lost contact while a person was distressed or in danger? How did you deal with that?

Usually, we call them back. You can lose contact all the time. Out of the times I've lost contact, I'd say maybe 5% were permanent, and of those 5%, about 95% were probably not important.

I'd say there is only one call that was dangerously lost, and that was a man in the mountains... He called 911 but before I could get his location, his phone died. He didn't have service, and from the brief gps segment I got, we were able to send rescue. They found his car about 20 miles from the road (this was over night, and it was 20 degrees that night) but couldn't find the man. We contacted the car owners, and they weren't able to get in touch with him. After a week, they pronounced him missing and put him in NCIC. I don't know if they ever found the guy/body

Wow. I don't recall you mentioning above, but what state/area was this in?

Somewhere in SC, NC or GA.

One of those three. Close to the mountains. I don't want to say for anon purposes.

What shift did you normally work? Is there a time when 911 calls are the most frequent?

I used to work 11p-7a - and it can vary so much. It's insane. I can't say one time more frequent than others, but if I had to qualify, i'd say 7pm-10pm

When people post 911 calls on youtube, where are they getting them from?

We would record calls with our cell phones... I imagine that's where they come from. I've never uploaded one to youtube nor do I know anyone that has (personally)

Sometimes, the news gets a hold of them and does it. Every call is recorded, and can be taken by the news through freedom of information. There are some legalities behind it, I'm not aware how all that worked.

Why did you leave the job?

I was in school for Comp Sci and I got a very generous job offer I'd be stupid not to take. O.o

Did you get drug tested upon getting hired or any time after that?

Never once.

But most departments do test. Ours was "random" but I never got tested for the random part.

Why did you choose this line of work? Any specific reasons, or just because?

It was a job, I was in college and I needed money. I like helping people and it was cool nonetheless...

Well, whether it was for the money or not (initially), you must have helped a lot of people every day you worked as an operator. You should be proud. It also must have been quite tough... Any specific calls that had a major effect on you?

Honestly - all calls had an effect on me. It gave me a new (bitter) perspective of people, and made me watch my back.

And thanks ^{.^} Honestly, Dispatch is one of the most under appreciated jobs ever. I loved the job, but I still empathize with every dispatcher out there.

What do you do when you don't receive a call for a few hours?

We'd watch movies, surf reddit, do homework, sleep, eat or play board games. (Or talk).

Our captain would not let us bring laptops in though... she was weird. But yeah, homework was allowed so being in college, that helped.

[deleted]

We actually used Motorola - NICE was too high tech for us. It was crap. It'd record about 80% of the calls, and when it did record, 5-10 seconds were cut off at the start.

How do you got about getting a job as a 911 operator? How do they prepare you for the job? Do you need any qualifications?

You call the 911 non emergent line and speak with the captain.

Usually, they give you tests to test your memory, ability to think and talk.

The only qualifications are: computer skills, fast thinking, good memory, fast typing, good speech and good people skills.

I lacked the last one, but I still made it through. The job taught me a lot about the last one though.