Thursday, July 22, 2010

911 caller wanted football team returned

A man in Lundar, Manitoba, Canada tied up local 911 service, pleading with the dispatcher to help him get the Jets football team back to Winnipeg.

According to Mike McIntyre of the Winnipeg Free Press, the calls were placed last year but were never reported until uncovered recently in police documents.

From McIntyre: "The emergency dispatcher politely told the angry caller there was nothing she could do to help him and reminded him that he was tying up a valuable resource before hanging up. But the man continued to phone back, claiming he had a lot on his mind."

"He had apparently been drinking and told police he hadn't slept in days. He started talking about world conglomerates, things like that. He was hallucinating, obviously."

The last straw came when the man began insulting the 911 operator, eventually calling her a crude name. She warned him that his number had been traced and police were being sent out to arrest him. "If you're coming to get me, can you bring me some smokes," was his reply.

He was also charged with public mischief, false messages, harassing phone calls and obstructing justice.

The Jets moved to Phoenix--and were re-named the Coyotes--following the 1995-96 season, after spending 17 years in Winnipeg. (info from NHL.fanhouse.com)

Wednesday, July 14, 2010

911 Operator mistyped, sending ambulance in wrong direction

A  911 operator in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, whose typo sent paramedics to the wrong address for a call about a dying infant, was suspended from her job.

The typo resulted in paramedics taking an extra seven minutes to reach a three-week-old baby. She died an hour later. Autopsy results to determine a cause of death are awaiting lab tests. A medical examiner said no evidence indicates that the delayed response played a role in the baby's death.

The call-taker served a five-day suspension without pay and had 32 hours of remedial training. She had nine years of experience but failed to verify the address before and after it was sent to emergency dispatchers.

The operator initially entered the right address into the computer system, but missed a keystroke when she added an apartment number--causing the computer to change the name of the street. Union officials called a suspension premature and unwarranted.
County officials are still trying to resolve the computer problem and nobody knows yet why the typo led the computer to change the street name. (info from http://www.pittsburghlive.com/)

Wednesday, July 7, 2010

Man arrested after calling 911 about a non-robbery

A man is accused of using a phone inside a Chevron gas station in Yavapai County, Arizona to report a robbery that never took place.

John Hanna allegedly tried to convince a Chevron employee to call in the robbery, and when the employee refused, Hanna called 911 and left, said Dwight D'Evelyn, spokesman for the Yavapai County Sheriff's Office.

Deputies who responded to the call got a description of the caller and found Hanna about 20 minutes later under a highway overpass.

Hanna, who was not armed and did not take anything from the store, allegedly told deputies that he was poor and had thought about committing a robbery.

It is unclear why he decided to call in a fake robbery. He was arrested on suspicion of false reporting of an emergency and booked into the Camp Verde Detention Center. (info from AZcentral.com)