"Crying Is Predictable. Silence Is Terrifying": 911 Dispatchers Are Sharing The Calls That Seem Fine At First, But Are Actually Major Emergencies - BuzzFeed

I'm a Senior Editor here at BuzzFeed, which means I've spent wayyyyy too much time on the internet.

People who work in emergency services have to deal with some really scary stuff. That's especially true of 911 dispatchers, who have to quickly decide how serious an emergency is, just based on a phone call.

So when u/Jolly_Photograph_219 asked, "911 dispatchers: What situation sounds harmless when someone first calls but immediately worries you?" dispatchers chimed in with the calls that still haunt them. They even shared some advice on what to look out for with your own body and environment to make sure you don't underestimate an alarming symptom or threat.

Content warning: This post mentions violence, domestic abuse, and suicide.

"Guy called in that the neighbor’s dog was going nuts in the backyard. I started to put it in the 'barking dog' file (lowest priority), when he said, 'It’s weird, because she usually brings him in at about 8.' It was 10, and her ex-boyfriend was threatening her with a gun and had assaulted her. Got him, she was safe, dog was safe.

But you better believe I started asking if the dog barked a lot. A couple of years later, I caught a window peeper because it was a dog that usually didn’t bark."

"The owner or employee called to say that a regular customer who always showed up at 7 a.m. every day hadn't shown up for two days, and they thought he might just be sleeping in. Dispatchers take this very seriously because for elderly people or those living alone, a sudden disruption in their daily routine is the biggest red flag."

"My sister worked at Domino's in high school, and they had an older man who ordered from there every single Friday and Saturday night without fail. When he didn't order on Friday, they assumed he was taking the night off because he would sometimes go out with a neighbor friend for dinner, but when he didn't order on Saturday, they knew something wasn't right.

My sister's boss called the non-emergency number and told the dispatcher, and she kind of blew it off. But when my sister's boss told her that he had five years of weekly orders and something wasn't right, they sent someone over. And sure enough, he had fallen down the basement stairs and had broken his hip and arm.

After he got released from rehab, he began ordering again without fail and even stopped into the store to see the staff and thank them. My sister said he was always a good tipper before, but he became an amazing one after that."

That's always the big one. Unconscious + snoring might just be snoring, or it might be agonal breathing, which is when someone's body is shutting down, and they're starting to stop breathing/enter cardiac arrest.

Fell and started snoring? Got punched and started snoring? Took narcotics and started snoring? Immediately goes from a normal fall/fight/overdose to a 'we're about to roll code and start CPR' type call."

— u/Which_Replacement524

"Someone calls in with a completely unrelated question, like what time a pizza place closes or how to get to a certain street, but speaks in a hushed voice on the phone, or refuses to hang up even after being told it's 911. An experienced dispatcher will immediately realize this is a domestic violence victim calling for help using a secret code, because the abuser is right in the room."

"A lot of times, it's really additional pieces of information that I have that ring the alarm bells, rather than what the caller reports. I might have location history, subject history, or phone number history that gives me a bigger picture. Experience means a lot. An 'iPhone crash notification' on most locations means someone put their phone on their roof before driving off (pls stop doing that), but an iPhone crash notification on a 'roller-coaster road' means I need a helo on standby."

— u/HyperHocusPocusFocus

"We get huge numbers of open line calls — a phone dials 911, but no one is speaking. Very often, there are innocuous sounds that come from rummaging around in a purse or similar. Keys rattling. Cash register beeping. I'll call them back, but 99.9% of the time it is nothing if the background sounds seem normal.

One of the most serious calls I ever handled was such an open line call, but the background sounds didn't seem right. Had a hard time saying exactly why, and even when I replayed the call, it sounded off but not exactly alarming.