Woman calls 911 because McDonald's is out of chicken nuggets

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07 Mar 2009, 4:12 pm

silly NT's, allways getting into arguments over the most frivelous things...



hartzofspace
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09 Mar 2009, 12:01 am

It is amazing how people misuse both 911 and the ER at hospitals. I used to live in an apartment building where people were always calling 911, for the most frivolous and stupid reasons. As for the ambulance calls, only their doctors would know if it had been really necessary, but there were instances where people were calling 911 because they had been quarreling with another neighbor, and that neighbor called them an ugly name! The police were heard to say that they were so sick and tired of answering calls to that address. :oops: I felt embarrassed to live there, and was glad when I could finally move away.


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09 Mar 2009, 4:50 am

Spokane_Girl wrote:
Don't people call 911 when they have been robbed?

Not necessarily. If you come home and your house is robbed, then phoning the police (via their regular local station number) is the proper response. However, if you came home while your home was being robbed, it would be appropriate to call 911.
Quote:
You call 911 when you have been in a car accident or when you see one, especially if the person isn't hurt but their car is.

That is not necessarily the right thing to do. If no one is injured and the cars are not presenting a hazard to other road users, then this would be an issue where the police should be informed using the regular local station phone number.

However, if someone is injured and it is potentially serious, or if the cars are a hazard to other road users (for instance they are strewn across a major motor way) then it is probably appropriate to dial 911.

911 is for emergencies. It is distressing to come home and find your house robbed, and it might feel like an emergency, but there is nothing an emergency response team can do for you that your local police could not. However if you know a burglar is currently on the property, you and others might be in danger, and further an emergency response police team might be able to intervene to catch the person if informed immediately, hence it is an emergency and using 911 is appropriate.

The formula for figuring it out is to ask yourself what an emergency response team could do that your local police or ambulance service etc could not do. If the answer is nothing really, then it is not an emergency and you should use local calling numbers to call the police/ambulance/fire service on their regular phone lines, rather than use 911/emergency services.

Frankly, I blame a lack of education about the emergency response system. We were quite literally taught these things when I was at school; a visiting police officer (ironically called Officer Crook) went around to schools and gave lessons about using emergency phone lines and explained very clearly when they should be used, and just as importantly, when they should not be used.



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09 Mar 2009, 11:31 am

pandd wrote:
Frankly, I blame a lack of education about the emergency response system. We were quite literally taught these things when I was at school; a visiting police officer (ironically called Officer Crook) went around to schools and gave lessons about using emergency phone lines and explained very clearly when they should be used, and just as importantly, when they should not be used.


I agree. I just had a frustrating experience with my doctor's office. I had a non-emergency type of problem, and merely wanted to make an appointment as soon as possible, and to have my doc call in some pain meds for the meantime. The stupid cow who calls herself a nurse, kept me on the phone for a half an hour while she kept putting me on hold, and then seeming to imply that my main goal was the procurement of narcotics. I told her that I was allergic to most narcotics, and couldn't the doctor give me something else? She then offered an appointment for 2 weeks away. When I protested, she said to go to the ER. WTF? I ended up hanging up on her, because she was making no sense at all. I didn't consider my problem to be a life threatening emergency, and I had no intentions of sitting in a germ ridden waiting room while all the other non-emergencies coughed and sneezed on me, or dripped blood on the floor. But this seems standard operating procedure lately. To treat nuisances and every day ailments as emergencies. :roll:


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mitharatowen
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09 Mar 2009, 12:21 pm

Life-threatening emergencies.

The regular police can handle things like petty theft. Also there are 'urgent care' places which are a step down from ER. Leave the ER for the actual life-threatening emergencies.

The above people are definately right about lack of education.



09 Mar 2009, 12:22 pm

pandd wrote:
Spokane_Girl wrote:
Don't people call 911 when they have been robbed?

Not necessarily. If you come home and your house is robbed, then phoning the police (via their regular local station number) is the proper response. However, if you came home while your home was being robbed, it would be appropriate to call 911.
Quote:
You call 911 when you have been in a car accident or when you see one, especially if the person isn't hurt but their car is.

That is not necessarily the right thing to do. If no one is injured and the cars are not presenting a hazard to other road users, then this would be an issue where the police should be informed using the regular local station phone number.

However, if someone is injured and it is potentially serious, or if the cars are a hazard to other road users (for instance they are strewn across a major motor way) then it is probably appropriate to dial 911.

911 is for emergencies. It is distressing to come home and find your house robbed, and it might feel like an emergency, but there is nothing an emergency response team can do for you that your local police could not. However if you know a burglar is currently on the property, you and others might be in danger, and further an emergency response police team might be able to intervene to catch the person if informed immediately, hence it is an emergency and using 911 is appropriate.

The formula for figuring it out is to ask yourself what an emergency response team could do that your local police or ambulance service etc could not do. If the answer is nothing really, then it is not an emergency and you should use local calling numbers to call the police/ambulance/fire service on their regular phone lines, rather than use 911/emergency services.

Frankly, I blame a lack of education about the emergency response system. We were quite literally taught these things when I was at school; a visiting police officer (ironically called Officer Crook) went around to schools and gave lessons about using emergency phone lines and explained very clearly when they should be used, and just as importantly, when they should not be used.


I don't know the number to our local police station. When I was in a car wreck in November 2007, neither of us were hurt, the guy called 911 and said he needed to get the police out here. They connected him to the station. I thought that's what 911 did for us.

What if you are traveling or in another town and you see car had ran off the road but no one was hurt? You don't know the local police station number so someone would dial 911 if those people didn't have a cell phone. I am sure someone would pull over to see if the person is alright first and make sure they have help on the way before taking out their cell phone.



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09 Mar 2009, 1:40 pm

^ You can call 411 to get the number of the local police without tying up the emergency phone lines.



09 Mar 2009, 2:26 pm

So that's what 411 is. I never heard of that number till now. I couldn't even figure out what 411 was. Now I know. It's to get the number to the police station. I'm so stupid as the McDonald lady. :oops:



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09 Mar 2009, 2:30 pm

Actually 411 is just for general information. Like... a phone book on the go! If you're out somewhere and you need to get some information like a phone number or address.. you can call 411 and an operator will help you. I'm sure they have the police stations on there too :)

Nah.. like I said its lack of education. People don't know about this stuff cuz they aren't well taught!! Now you know so you're smarter than the average Joe ;)



09 Mar 2009, 2:41 pm

I learned 911 when I was six and I was told in school it's only for emergencies like when someone is hurt, there is a fire, someone is sick. Now imagine if I took that too literal, someone gets hurt in my house because my brother fell down outside so I call 911 because he got hurt. Now that might be something for the journalists to write about and report on the news and people might go "ah that is so funny, that little girl is so cute." Now if an adult did that, people would go "what an idiot." Now imagine if it was a seven year old girl who called 911 over McDonalds not having chicken McNuggets instead of a 27 year old? I'm sure our reactions would be different in this thread about it. Instead we might be complaining about needing better education for the kids about dialing 911, and maybe blaming it on the girl's parents.

As I got older, I learned you could call 911 for other things.



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09 Mar 2009, 11:50 pm

Spokane_Girl wrote:
I don't know the number to our local police station.

That is what phone books and directory services are there for.
Quote:
When I was in a car wreck in November 2007, neither of us were hurt, the guy called 911 and said he needed to get the police out here. They connected him to the station. I thought that's what 911 did for us.

911 is there to handle emergencies. The operator assesses the emergency to dispatch emergency response teams and stays on the phone and renders assistance while the emergency responders are in transit.

They are not there to act as a phone re-directory service.
Quote:

What if you are traveling or in another town and you see car had ran off the road but no one was hurt?

I would either use directory services to contact the local police, or I would offer to ring the local police from the nearest shop/garage/place with a phone book, or I would leave them to sort it out themselves if they did not need my assistance.

Quote:
You don't know the local police station number so someone would dial 911 if those people didn't have a cell phone. I am sure someone would pull over to see if the person is alright first and make sure they have help on the way before taking out their cell phone.

911 is an emergency service, not a convenience service and this is something that was very explicitly and clearly spelled out in the education to which I referred in my earlier post.

911 is for emergencies and what you describe above is not an emergency but simply an instance where getting in contact with the police is less convenient than using 911 services.

Ironically when it was more difficult and inconvenient to contact police via their regular number or emergency services via 911 (in an incident such as you describe above), less people misused emergency services.

The difference is not that it is hard or difficult to contact police via their regular phone numbers (when compared to earlier times) but rather that contacting 911 is so much easier and seemingly people these days feel entitled to have everything easy; without education to ensure they know that using 911 for convenience is abuse of the system, it is very likely that many people will not realize that this is an inappropriate way to contact services in non-emergencies.

An actual emergency is very different from a non-emergency where it just happens to be quicker and more convenient than obtaining the number of local police/fire/ambulance service. Non-convenience does not an emergency make and I still consider that there needs to be more systematic education about this issue so that people can better understand the scope of what constitutes a 911 emergency. How to best and most efficiently contact the relevant service in non-emergencies should certainly feature in such education.



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10 Mar 2009, 12:29 am

Also, people who are quick to use 911 for everything, don't seem to realize that it drives taxes up when there are a lot of false alarms or non-emergency situations being responded to. Not to mention the real emergencies that have to wait. There are people who call just because someone's kitchen smoke alarm goes off. (I kid you not!)


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10 Mar 2009, 3:18 pm

IT WAS A PACK OF FREAKIN' MCNUGGETS...

What's the world coming to when a person feels it is the right thing to ring an EMERGENCY number because she cannot get some disgusting greasy lumps of congealed meat and additives? As far as I'm concerned, they were doing her a favour... or at least her thighs...

What if all the lines were blocked except one and there was her and one other person who was being held at gunpoint or something? Someone could have been killed so it's not really very funny.


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