Being a 911 dispatcher may be a critical job, but it is certainly not an easy one. Their job is literally life or death for those on the other end of the line.
Operators work under an immense amount of pressure not only to get emergency services out quickly and accurately, but also in dealing with the callers who may be experiencing trauma or crime in real time.
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And even though the job is about saving lives, not every call has a happy ending. Sometimes services simply don’t reach a caller in time, while in others, as in the case of murders, the crime unfolds with the dispatcher on the line.
A group of 911 dispatchers took to Reddit to share some of their most unforgettable — and sometimes creepiest — 911 calls.
Read on for some of the creepiest 911 calls dispatchers have ever received.
Photo: Twitter / @texasnewsblog
Man Shoots Wife, Then Himself
Murder-suicides are, unfortunately, all too common. In many of those cases the 911 call comes when a friend or family member finds the deceased, but for this dispatcher the husband picked up the phone and dialed for help before killing himself while on the line.
“Guy shot his wife after he found her cheating. He was hysterical and scared s–less about what he had just done. He put the phone down and there was another gunshot. He killed himself and I heard it. His wife was still alive and she was screaming that she forgave him over and over and that they were gonna get through it,” the dispatcher recalled.
The dispatcher followed up the harrowing tale by saying that while the husband died from his self-inflicted injuries, the wife did survive.
Up in Flames
While death is an unfortunate part of a 911 dispatcher’s job, for many when the death is that of a child it’s harder to move on from. The stories that are truly difficult to move on from, however, are those where the dispatcher is completely powerless to help as the tragedy unfolds on the phone like in this call involving a house fire.
“I had two children trapped in a house fire. Mom and the family ran out of the house, leaving the kids inside. The fire had engulfed the home and was blowing out the windows and through the entire first floor. The mother called 911 and I fielded her call. The panic and despair in her voice. The screams. Pounding on the door, the door that locked behind them when they ran out of the house. The screams of pain as someone is being burned while trying to get back into a fire filled house… knowing that there was nothing more that could be done while on the phone with the screaming hysterical mother was hard to do. I wanted to drive there and help too. I wanted to cry right with her.”
Sometimes It’s Not Just the Call That’s Difficult
Suicide calls are always difficult for 911 dispatchers, but sometimes there are other elements of the call that cause them to stick with a dispatcher long after the crisis is over. For one dispatcher, it was their own choice of words.
“I get a call from a hysterical man (found that out a little bit into the call) who was yelling that his adult sister (in her 40s, I think) just shot herself in the head in front of their extended family. The reason I bring up his sex is that he sounded like a female and I kept calling him ma’am when asking for him to take a breath so that I could get the needed info. Yes, I know some dispatchers won’t say sir/ma’am but that is how I was brought up. When he yelled that he was a man, I just switched to sir and kept trying to calm him down to get the info I needed.”
Completely Vanished
While most calls into 911 have a resolution of some sort it’s the calls that don’t that haunt not just the dispatcher, but everyone involved in the emergency. This dispatcher is still losing sleep over a call that resulted in a double vanishing.
“A year into the job in a pretty large town with woods all around. Got a call from a young man, identified himself as 21. Said he went on a hike with his best friend. This is where it got weird. I asked for his location and it was around 50 miles from the nearest trailhead, but not in the direction the trails move. I asked him to tell me what the problem was and what services he needed when he burst into tears, saying one moment his friend was in front of him, and the next he was gone. Dispatched sheriff and was told neither man was ever found. Still freaks me out.”
