chris@com50.c2s.mn.org (Chris Johnson) (07/10/90)
I had my first need to call 911 this weekend. I was setting up equipment for a concert in one of Minneapolis's parks on Sunday afternoon, and a couple of guys who had the appearances of street people got into a fight. Since the audience (many with small children) was disturbed by this, as was I, I started looking around for security or park police people. None were to be found. At the request of some of the parents, I headed for the pay phone to call the police. Just as I reached the phone, another man ran up and said one of the men fighting had a knife. I dialed 911 and said, "There's a knife fight going on in the Nicollet Island Park." The operator replied, "what's the address there?" This was my first clue that either the operator was daft, or she was not getting any automatic information on my location. Me: "I'm in the Nicollet Island Park shelter building, the fight is about 50 yards away in the ampitheatre." Op: "Did you say they had knives?" Me: "Yes, one of them has a knife." Op: "Did you see the knife?" Me: "No, another person here told me he saw one." [meanwhile, fighter A is cutting away pieces of fighter B, bit by bit] Op: "So you didn't see a knife..." Me: [exasperated] "No, but these guys are drunk or brain damaged. They are way out of it. They are scaring the people here..." Op: "Let me talk to the person who saw the knife." Me: "He left..." [just then, another woman runs up with her four year old daughter and says to me something about the one guy with the knife is cutting the other guy up -- get an ambulance. I say to the operator "Here's another woman who saw the knife" and hand the phone to the woman who proceeds to tell the operator in no uncertain terms that we've got near panic on our hands, and a soon to be dead man, even though the knife is small, he's cutting pieces out of the other guy over and over. The woman hangs up, and says to me that her husband has gone to call the police also at another phone, over on shore. I start to walk over the bridge (I had been on my way to shore to get a bite to eat anyway ...) and finally, I start hearing sirens. We ended up with four police squads, a rescue truck, an ambulance and two park police (where were they earlier, anyway?). A few other street people who were with the guys who were fighting immediately made tracks for the woods, but I heard later they managed to at least round up the one weirdo who was bugging me on stage, as well as the two fighters -- one of whom went to the hospital with full lights and sirens. Don't know if he made it -- heard that he had about a dozen superficial cuts when I got back talked with my friends. But then a while later, a truck and guy showed up from what I took to be the coroner's office. Still later, I found out a third person had also called 911. I guess once they got three different calls about the same problem from three different phones they managed to figure out I wasn't kidding when I first called. While I can certainly appreciate false alarms, I was rather taken aback at how much cajoling I had to do to get any response. In fact, who knows what might have happened if the other people had not called, and the woman had not taken the phone from me and described the knife to the operator. Sheeesh. Is this how E911 is supposed to work? And why didn't they know my location right away? I know that the switch is plenty new enough, and we've had E911 for at least 9 or 10 years here. ...Chris Johnson chris@c2s.mn.org ..uunet!bungia!com50!chris Com Squared Systems, Inc. St. Paul, MN USA +1 612 452 9522 [Moderator's Note: Your experience was definitly NOT how 911 is supposed to work. What sometimes happens is that although the dispatcher usually gets an actual street address, some public phones in parks, along the highway, etc. don't get very well identified as to location if there is no physical street number associated with the location. It sounds also like the dispatcher was possibly new and not very well trained. PT]
Ralph Sims <ralphs@halcyon.wa.com> (07/13/90)
chris@com50.c2s.mn.org (Chris Johnson) writes: [description of problem with a call to 911 deleted] > While I can certainly appreciate false alarms, I was rather taken > aback at how much cajoling I had to do to get any response. In fact, > who knows what might have happened if the other people had not called, > and the woman had not taken the phone from me and described the knife > to the operator. Sheeesh. > Is this how E911 is supposed to work? And why didn't they know my > location right away? I know that the switch is plenty new enough, and > we've had E911 for at least 9 or 10 years here. Perhaps the E911 equipment did not produce an ANI/ALI (Automatic Number/Location Identification) and the call-taker was trying to verify the location with the phone number. In some systems (including those that have been on line for a while), the geobase goes through growing pains and this info is not available. As an emergency services dispatcher, I cringe at the treatment you received. I do know, however, in many communities the emergency services are taxed in their resources, prompting the 911 call-takers to 'interview' the callers and hence prioritize the dispatch. In some cities, a 911 call reporting a burglary may only get a followup phone call from a detective or, at best, a visit a few days later (this is based on the 'fact' that very few burglars are caught as a result of crime scene investigation). There are many cities with abuse of the 911 system. This includes: 'The power company just cut off my lights. What can I do?" "Where can I get my pet his shots?" "Are there any fireworks displays on tonight?" "When will the cable tv channels be back on?" And so forth, with the attendant false alarms. This also prompts the PSAP (public service answering point) to interview the caller in an attempt to find out if the report is 'real'. I'm not saying this is the correct way (I'd have a hard time working in a center like this). > [Moderator's Note: Your experience was definitly NOT how 911 is > supposed to work. What sometimes happens is that although the > dispatcher usually gets an actual street address, some public > phones in parks, along the highway, etc. don't get very well identified > as to location if there is no physical street number associated with > the location. It sounds also like the dispatcher was possibly new and > not very well trained. PT] And possibly the pay phones were not included in the 911 geobase. We have basic 911 in our county, with E911 a couple of years away. The geobase will be compiled from physical surveys of all the roads and addresses within the county by the AGENCIES that will be using the service; US West will provide the phone number database and address references, but EACH address must be physically verified. As an aside, some dispatch protocols call for the call-taker to get the closest cross-street to the incident. In this county, those are sometimes five miles from that location. There's one dispatch center handling fire and medical emergencies that still asks the question. Some questions arise in the implementation of E911 systems regarding cellular phones (hitting a cell remote from location, sometimes in another county), and in office buildings with a main PBX; in the earlier days of E911, the address would come back to that of the building or the switchboard, and not the specific office within (in a building with a few hundred offices, this could be disasterous).
John Higdon <john@bovine.ati.com> (07/13/90)
Chris Johnson <chris@com50.c2s.mn.org> writes: > Is this how E911 is supposed to work? And why didn't they know my > location right away? I know that the switch is plenty new enough, and > we've had E911 for at least 9 or 10 years here. You are not the first person to have this experience. There was some famous case (I believe in the South) where the operator put the caller through some third degree. She wanted to talk to the person who was having the medical attack and kept insisting even when told that the person was in no way able to talk on the phone. Eventually, the victim died even while the 911 call was in progress. There was some litigation as a result. Calling 911 about once a year for assorted emergencies has resulted in prompt, efficient service. But I have a contingency plan for that day when I get the response that you have described. I will ask the operator for his/her "operator number" and inform the person that I will now hang up and call the agency direct if s/he can't help me. If, after one second, the attitude hasn't rotated 180 degrees, I will do just that. And then when the smoke clears, I will file a formal complaint. John Higdon | P. O. Box 7648 | +1 408 723 1395 john@bovine.ati.com | San Jose, CA 95150 | M o o !
kaufman@neon.stanford.edu (Marc T. Kaufman) (07/15/90)
In article <9694@accuvax.nwu.edu> John Higdon <john@bovine.ati.com> writes: -I will ask the -operator for his/her "operator number" and inform the person that I -will now hang up and call the agency direct if s/he can't help me. If, -after one second, the attitude hasn't rotated 180 degrees, I will do -just that. And then when the smoke clears, I will file a formal -complaint. Better make sure you have two lines. You can't hang up on a 911 call unless the operator lets you. Marc Kaufman (kaufman@Neon.stanford.edu) [Moderator's Note: If one of them tried that -- deliberatly holding up the line to prevent me from calling the police administration line -- I would make note of that also in a formal complaint. PT]
wclx@vax5.cit.cornell.edu (07/16/90)
In article <9611@accuvax.nwu.edu>, chris@com50.c2s.mn.org (Chris Johnson) writes: > Op: "So you didn't see a knife..." > Me: [exasperated] "No, but these guys are drunk or brain damaged. They are > way out of it. They are scaring the people here..." > Op: "Let me talk to the person who saw the knife." In Detroit, callers who report hearing shots from the house next door (or wherever) are asked HOW MANY shots. If they don't report a large enough number, the report is ignored (ref. Detroit Free Press circa 1980). I guess that reflects local conditions. One afternoon when I was walking along Warren Avenue in Detroit (a major street with fast, heavy traffic), I noticed some confusion at an intersection with Third Avenue (aka Anthony Wayne Drive). The traffic lights were malfunctioning such that for part of the cycle, the lights were green in both directions! There were no police or city workers present. After seeing several very near misses, I phoned 911 and reported what was happening. The operator was unbelievably thick and didn't seem to understand what I meant by "traffic light." After a few go-rounds, I found the trick which woke her up and got her attention: I threatened to give up. This had an almost miraculous effect. Suddenly, all her languor was gone; she begged me to repeat the location, and finally seemed to understand what I was talking about. I didn't have time to hang around to see what happened. The light was fixed by the next day, however. As to stories about 911 screwups that led to fatalities, there was one such in my hometown of East Lansing, Michigan. A student at Michigan State University was hit on the chest with a baseball and eventually died. The emergency response was greatly delayed because the dispatcher had zero familiarity with the MSU campus (which has about 24,000 residents, almost 10% of the county's population) and sent paramedics to Holmes Street in Lansing rather than Holmes Hall at MSU. This happened about ten years ago, long before E911 or automatic address identification in that area. Actually, I'm not absolutely certain whether the student's death could have been prevented if paramedics had arrived more promptly. Lawrence Kestenbaum, wclx@vax5.cit.cornell.edu -OR- wclx@cornella.bitnet 506 S. Albany St., Ithaca NY 14850-5514
roy@phri.nyu.edu (Roy Smith) (07/17/90)
This is getting a bit off the telecom track, but I once had an
odd experience with non-believing emergency folks. About seven or so
years ago, I was walking on 42nd St and 9th Ave in New York. The
Transit Authority had recently started buying buses with dot-matrix
destination signs, and the one I saw was flashing "Emergency", "Call
Police", "Get Help" or something like that. Clever, I thought, and
ran across the street to grab two cops standing around. "Hey, the
sign on the bus says to call the police!" I said. "Huh? What sign on
the bus? What are you talking about?"
You can guess the rest; I had to practically push the cops in front of
the bus before the believed me or had any idea what the hell I was
talking about. The TA had a good idea putting emergency buttons where
the driver could hit it discretely (and this driver had done so by
accident in this case) but apparantly never got around to telling the
Police Department about it (or, I would guess, the 911 folks).
Roy Smith,
Public Health Research Institute
455 First Avenue, New York, NY 10016
roy@alanine.phri.nyu.edu -OR- {att,cmcl2,rutgers,hombre}!phri!roytep@tots.logicon.com (Tom Perrine) (07/17/90)
With all of the negative 911 experiences being described, I thought I
would mention that, at least here in a backwater :-) of Pac Bell land
(Poway, near San Diego), 911 works!
The across-the-street neighbor's kids were visiting from college. They
parked their 60's vintage VW bus in front of our house. A passer-by
knocked on our door, "your van is on fire". My wife called 9-1-1, I
grabbed the kitchen extinguisher and headed out the door. I could hear
the fire sirens before I got to the curb. (The fire station is eight
blocks away.)
Apparently the 9-1-1 conversation went like this:
9-1-1 OP: "What kind of emergency?"
SO: "Fire"
(1-ring)
Fire? OP: "Are you calling from <our address>?"
SO: "Yes, its a car fire in front of our house"
(Five to ten second pause, then sound of sirens in the background)
Fire OP: "They are on the way", followed by questions about the fire,
is everyone out, was anyone hurt, etc.
Shazamm! I guess this is exactly the way its supposed to work.
Side Note: Even though the fire fighters were on the scene within three
minutes of the call, the van was a total loss. The kids had replaced
the fuel line with aquarium tubing "because it was cheaper". According
to the fire fighters, this accounts for more VW bug and van fires than
any other cause.
Tom Perrine (tep) |Internet: tep@tots.Logicon.COM
Logicon |UUCP: nosc!hamachi!tots!tep
Tactical and Training Systems Division |-or- sun!suntan!tots!tep
San Diego CA |GENIE: T.PERRINE
|+1 619 455 1330ralphs@halcyon.wa.com (Ralph Sims) (07/17/90)
eli@pws.bull.com (Steve Elias) writes: >> Calling 911 about once a year for assorted emergencies has resulted in >> prompt, efficient service. But I have a contingency plan for that day > I imagine that San Jose has reasonable 911 services, but in many > cities, it's true that "911 is a joke." Why should they hurry when > it's "just another gang murder"? I would like to believe that the law enforcement services are a little more concerned than _that_. Interviews with big-city mayors produce the feeling that there _is_ concern and they really _want_ to do something about their city's problems. My feeling is that 911 centers dispatch the calls as they should; the problem seems to be with the {law enforecement, fire department's} response to those calls. 911 (especially E911) works! The system is in place in virtually all of the continental U.S. and is accessed by millions of people a year. I'm going to try to get some stats on 911 useage, etc., and will place them here for perusal.
marc@ttc.uucp (Marc O'Krent) (07/19/90)
In article <9805@accuvax.nwu.edu> Tom Perrine <tep@tots.logicon.com> writes: X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 10, Issue 490, Message 8 of 10 >With all of the negative 911 experiences being described, I thought I >would mention that, at least here in a backwater :-) of Pac Bell land >(Poway, near San Diego), 911 works! Well, I can add my two cents also with a 911 experience which demonstrates that the system works, but not when the police force is over-taxed. You may have heard that we don't have enough police in LA what with being the new gang and drug center of the U.S. Several years ago I was home for lunch when I heard some arguing going on next door. I looked at the window to find a man standing on the walkway of the house next door with a long-nose revolver pointed at some workmen. Upon calling 911 I was told that officers would be "right over." Unfortunately, this is LA and the time was about 12-1pm which means that we were reaching the time when the LAPA has about five calls for every two officers. Twenty minutes later the 911 operator called me back and said "Is the man still there?". And I said, "I'm not sticking my head out the window again to find out, why don't you *send* someone over here and see for youself before someone gets shot!" Shortly thereafter officers did arrive and arrested the man. Upon searching his apartment they found a cache of weapons and ammo. The story was that the owner of the building had sent exterminators over to tent it, and this irate tenant was not too interested in leaving. On balance, the LAPD does a good job, but is simply too spread out which makes even 911 a risky bet a peak times. If you saw the PBS special on the trauma system, you would see that unfortunately the 911 system for medical emergencies is in even worse shape at times. Marc O'Krent The Telephone Connection Internet: marc@ttc.info.com MCIMail: mokrent Voice Mail: +1 213 551 9620
cramer@uunet.uu.net (Clayton Cramer) (07/19/90)
In article <9805@accuvax.nwu.edu>, tep@tots.logicon.com (Tom Perrine) writes: > With all of the negative 911 experiences being described, I thought I > would mention that, at least here in a backwater :-) of Pac Bell land > (Poway, near San Diego), 911 works! Well, I have two experiences with 911 service from Pac Bell. In both cases, 911 did their job, but the results varied greatly. In the first case, a man with a bat was threatening a kid in front on my apartment building in Santa Monica, CA. (The guy with the bat turned out to be the good guy). From the time I dialed 911 to the time three police cars showed up was three minutes, fifteen seconds. I didn't have to provide any address or name information -- I just reported it, and went back outside to be a witness or to intervene if necessary. The other case involved a drunk dragging a woman, kicking and screaming out of her apartment, down the stairs in Costa Mesa, CA. I called, described the incident, but for reasons that remain unclear to me, they spent quite a bit of time asking for a detailed description of the EXACT location where this was happening (perhaps to distinguish it from any similar events in that block :-)). In this case, 911 did their job, but this being a Saturday night in Costa Mesa, it took Costa Mesa PD 45 minutes to show up, during which time I found myself holding a gun, trying to decide at what point to intervene in the situation. (This was a considerably less pleasant experience than it sounds -- and it sounds pretty unpleasant). By the time the police arrived, this guy was long gone. I don't know about the rest of you, but 911 works just fine -- now if they could just improve response time of the PDs to the point where they can do something besides draw chalk marks around the bodies... Clayton E. Cramer {pyramid,pixar,tekbspa}!optilink!cramer Disclaimer? You must be kidding! No company would hold opinions like mine!
ijk@violin.att.com (Ihor J Kinal) (07/19/90)
In article <9869@accuvax.nwu.edu>, ralphs@halcyon.wa.com (Ralph Sims) writes: > 911 (especially E911) works! The system is in place in virtually all > of the continental U.S. and is accessed by millions of people a year. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem available in New Jersey, which otherwise is fairly well served in the telecom area. Although I've heard rumors of it going in, and don't know of any hard dates. # include <standard_disclaimer> Ihor Kinal att!cbnewsh!ijk
tad@beaver.cs.washington.edu (Tad Cook) (07/20/90)
In article <9611@accuvax.nwu.edu>, chris@com50.c2s.mn.org (Chris Johnson) writes: > I dialed 911 and said, "There's a knife fight going on in the Nicollet > Island Park." > The operator replied, "what's the address there?" This was my first > clue that either the operator was daft, or she was not getting any > automatic information on my location. This is standard. They always try to verify what they see on their ALI display. > Me: "I'm in the Nicollet Island Park shelter building, the fight is > about 50 yards away in the ampitheatre." > Op: "Did you say they had knives?" > Me: "Yes, one of them has a knife." At this point you are getting panicky, and they are probably already rolling a squad car ... at the same time they need more info to determine if an aid car is needed and how much response to give. > Op: "Did you see the knife?" > Me: "No, another person here told me he saw one." [meanwhile, fighter > A is cutting away pieces of fighter B, bit by bit] > Op: "So you didn't see a knife..." > Me: [exasperated] "No, but these guys are drunk or brain damaged. They are > way out of it. They are scaring the people here..." > Op: "Let me talk to the person who saw the knife." At this point you are going crazy, thinking that these jerks are putting you through the 3rd degree before they will do ANYTHING, but the fact is that they are probably already responding. Also, what seems like a LONG TIME when you are panicked is actually a few seconds. > We ended up with four police squads, a rescue truck, an ambulance and > two park police (where were they earlier, anyway?). Sounds like an appropriate response. > Still later, I found out a third person had also called 911. I guess > once they got three different calls about the same problem from three > different phones they managed to figure out I wasn't kidding when I > first called. They probably responded to the first call. The trick is to get the caller to calm down and give good information while sending a response, and do it in such a way as to not piss off or panic the caller. Without the info, they don't know whether to send two officers, ten officers, an aid car, fire engine, bomb sqaud, etc. 911 in a metro area can be a real juggling act, figuring out quickly how to allocate limited resources. > Is this how E911 is supposed to work? Yes! > And why didn't they know my location right away? They probably did, but procedure told them to verify it. Tad Cook Seattle, WA Packet: KT7H @ N7HFZ.WA.USA.NA Phone: 206/527-4089 MCI Mail: 3288544 Telex: 6503288544 MCI UW USENET:...uw-beaver!sumax!amc-gw!ssc!tad or, tad@ssc.UUCP
nol2105%dsacg2.dsac.dla.mil@dsac.dla.mil (Robert E. Zabloudil) (07/26/90)
One day my children were involved in a typical sibling-type quarrel over something or another; I think it was my son who "jokingly" picked up the phone, announced he was calling the police, dialed 911, and set the phone back down as soon as he heard the ringing. Needless to say, the connection took; although it was satisfying that the Authorities called back to find out why the connection was dropped, I was not amused, as you can imagine. We immediately had a family talk about *exactly* what 911 is for, what it does, etc. That stunt has not been repeated at our house! Nice to know, though, that 911 'works' in Franklin Co OH. P.S. I suppose my phone number etc. is now in the authority's database? Should I be paranoid? Bob Zabloudil Opinions my own, etc. [Moderator's Note: Your number was in the data base from the time 911 was first implemented in your community. And no, there is no reason for paranoia, unless you are the type of person who is ordinarily paranoid about the police. PT]