Strollerderby : 911

Boy Calls 911 to Report a Missing Mother

Hannah Tennant-Moore — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 14:30:00 GMT

A six-year-old boy displayed far more common sense than his mother after he woke up in the middle of the night and discovered that his mom was gone. After wandering through the house looking for her, he went out to the garage and saw that her car was missing. That’s when he called 911.

When deputies arrived at around 2 a.m., the scared boy was standing in the garage with his four-year-old sister. Their mother, 23-year-old Megan Rene Hester, returned home soon thereafter, having been away from the house for at least half an hour. She told police that she had simply run to the convenience store to buy gasoline while her kids were sleeping.

Because her house was clean and her children appeared to be healthy, police did not file charges against the woman. They notified the State Attorney’s office and child welfare workers of the situation, leaving it up to these parties to take action if they felt it was necessary to do so.

I’m certainly glad that a traumatic situation for these young kids was not made worse by having to watch their mother get arrested, but I do hope child welfare agents take this case seriously. If the boy hadn’t remained so calm and resourceful, this could have been a far worse situation for everyone involved.

Do you think the mother should have been charged with child endangerment?

Photo: Smart Kids Publishing

Boy Accidentally Shoots Self With Forgotten Gun

Brett Singer — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 17:00:00 GMT

Before I say anything else, let me point out the most important thing, which is that the boy is in stable condition, according to CNN.

Here's what the CNN story says:

12-year-old Jacob Larsen found a ".25-caliber European semi-automatic handgun" in the closet. The gun had been stored there by Jacob's parents when they moved a few years ago, and they had forgotten about it. The mother, Tracy Newman, told police that the gun was a gift from a "former employer." Jacob found the gun and accidentally shot himself in the head. He was discovered by his stepfather, who called 911.

Again, the most important detail is that the boy is, for now, alive. Hopefully he will recover. But it's worth pointing out something that is often skipped over in debates about gun control.

Guns are dangerous.

Why do people keep guns at home? For protection. Or maybe because they hunt. That assumes some active involvement in the ownership of a gun, which is a dangerous weapon. Whenever "the right to bear arms" is discussed, we hear about "responsible gun owners." And I'm sure there are many.

But then you have a situation like this. Local police told CNN that when she received the gun "The mother never checked it, never fired it." How do you not know that you have a loaded firearm in your house? If someone gave me a gun as a gift, the first thing I would do is check if it was loaded. Wouldn't you? And I know next to nothing about guns. (OK, I know what I see in movies and on TV, and I do read 'The Punisher.' The occasional Ludlum novel. But that's not real life.)

Interestingly, the CNN story focuses on the legality of the incident. Apparently "Florida law prohibits a person from leaving a loaded firearm where a minor might have access to it. Prosecutors do have some discretion, and depending on what happens with the gun, charges ranging from a misdemeanor to a felony can be filed in the event of death or serious injury." Chief Assistant State Attorney Bruce Bartlett is quoted as saying that "Sometimes, the injury of a child is more severe from a punishment standpoint than any kind of criminal charge…those parents will blame themselves from here out, and you have to look at things real close to see if it warrants any enforcement from our end."

Fair enough. And I can't say enough that I sincerely hope the boy comes out of this safely. But how can anyone defend unrestricted gun ownership when something like this occurs?

Source: CNN

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Boy Calls 911 When Mom Drives Drunk

Brett Singer — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 19:30:00 GMT

File this under "I may not be perfect but I'm a better parent than this lady."

36-year-old Belinda Leighton of Boca Raton, Florida was arrested this week and charged with driving drunk. With her kids, ages 9 and 13, in the car.

After spending "the morning drinking wine and beer", Leighton got in her car with children in tow. She told the kids that she had "had it" (it's not clear if she'd "had it" with them or just in general) and "was going to kill them and herself by crashing the car." One of the children called 911 from the back seat; Leighton was arrested at a friend's house.

According to WPBF News, Leighton asked that the deputies "take her children and put them in foster care." I give her credit for that, at least. Hopefully that's an indication that she knows she has a problem and will get help.

Big props to the kid who called 911 as well. It would be enough to just get out of that situation physically unharmed (emotionally is another story). But to have the presence of mind to call the police? I'm impressed. (I know, looking for a positive here, but can you blame me?)

Source: WPBF

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Toddler Calls 911 Sixty Times in a Week

Hannah Tennant-Moore — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 21:00:00 GMT

The emergency responders in a small Ohio town are at their wit’s end with a toddler who has called 911 repeatedly this week, giggling into the phone and then hanging up.

The calls are coming from a deactivated cell phone, implying that parents gave the child an old phone as a plaything. So far, officials in Middletown, Ohio have been loath to donate the time and resources to seeking out the miscreant caller (or, more accurately, the caller’s miscreant parents), but if the calls continue, they will have no choice but to track the calls and perhaps charge the parents with telecommunication harassment.

As long as there is any battery power left at all in an old cell phone, the phone can still call 911. While this is certainly of no use to a two-year-old, old phones are in great demand at domestic violence shelters, senior centers, and amongst soldiers. A quick Google search can tell you where to donate phones in your area.

It's rather disconcerting that the parents of this phone-happy tot not only did not think to remove the battery from the phone, but also have failed to notice that their child has been tying up the town's emergency resources for an entire week.

Photo: Tech Buzz

4 Year Old Calls 911, Saves Mom

Boy Finds Spider Monkey in Backyard - Video

Brett Singer — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 15:00:00 GMT

Living in Manhattan, we don't get a lot of wild animals. Then again, I doubt most "country" dwellers expect to see an overweight spider monkey in their backyard.

Yes. A spider monkey. In East Ridge, Tennessee.

Here's a video report:

According to local station News Channel 9, the monkey's name is Clyde, and the owners "say they bought him from a flea market" 25 years ago. In addition to being overweight -- Clyde has a fondness for Lil' Debbie cakes and Italian food -- "they say he's getting old, and has cataracts."

In other words, Clyde is somebody's pet. Pet spider monkey.

How much would you freak if you saw Clyde in your backyard? How about if you were four years old?

Source: newschannel9.com
Image: necn.com

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4 Year Old Calls 911 - Saves Mom

Brett Singer — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 23:00:00 GMT

This is too cool.

We had the OctoMom 911 call. That's depressing. This one, however, has a happy ending.

Jennifer Roller was making lunch for her 4-year-old son TJ when she just collapsed. TJ didn't freak out. He called 911 and calmly told the operator, "My Mommy's sick. Can you please come over here?"

In writing, it actually sounds worse than it does when you actually hear it. (Visit TheDenverChannel.com to hear the call.) Jason Vigil, the 911 dispatcher, also deserves major props for keeping the kid calm while gathering information. "We're sending friends over," sounds much better than "The police are coming!!!"

TJ sounds like any other kid. "What are you doing?" "I'm watching a movie." It's worth listening to. TJ was honored by the fire department on Tuesday for his actions, which officials say saved his mother's life.

The mother has a medical condition that hasn't been revealed, and she has briefed her young'uns on what to do if she has a problem. Or, as TJ put it: "She told me whenever she gets sick ... call 991." Luckily, he knew the right number to dial.

Source: TheDenverChannel.com

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AUDIO - OctoMom 911 Calls Released

Brett Singer — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 16:02:00 GMT

We already know that Nadya Suleman called 911 when she couldn't find one of her kids. Now we can hear it.

"Help me! My son is missing! I'm going crazy! Where's my son? Where's my son?"

(Visit TMZ to hear the call, or listen to it below.)

It's sad to listen to. Bizarrely fascinating but sad. Most parents will relate to the first call somewhat -- Nadya thinks her five-year-old is missing. The thing is, she loses it completely, saying, "Oh my God, I'm going to kill myself." She is then admonished by the 911 operator to not say something like that in front of her children. "Keep yourself under control." When the kid comes back, says "mommy," it's heartbreaking.

This woman is a mess.

Then comes the second call. One of Nadya's kids calls 911 and hangs up. The 911 operator calls back, talks to the kid, who claims to be in charge of the home, eventually admitting that a babysitter is there. That part is kind of funny. The operator really earns her keep by getting an adult on the phone who says everything is OK.

The common thread between the two calls is chaos. I'm not a fan of chaos. With kids, it happens. With six kids, it probably happens a lot. With fourteen? Do I need to say it?

Forget "reality show." Actual reality has crept into this story.

A commenter over on MomLogic has a theory that I wish I could say I don't take any stock in but it's hard not to at this point: "The movie 'The Changeling' in which Angelina Jolie has scenes where she is frantically beseeching to get her lost son back opened on October 24. Trailers for the movie must have been all over the networks for days. This 911 call came in on Oct 27. Total coincidence, I am sure."

Oy. Vey.

Source: TMZ

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Mom Resuscitates Baby Four Times On Phone With Emergency Control

JeanneSager — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 18:33:00 GMT

Four times Cordelia Nolan's newborn son stopped breathing, and four times she brought him back while she waited for emergency workers to show up on her doorstep.

Nolan's cousin, Kieran Byrne, acted as a go-between between a 999 (this was Britain) operator and Cordelia while she repeated CPR again and again on her little boy, just ten weeks old and born two months premature.

Wow. Not the pithiest of statements, but this one stopped me cold.

I saw myself going through the motions in my head and bursting into tears. I know adrenaline kicks in when you're faced with adversity, and a mother's love for her child will always prevail, but I don't know if I'd have had the wherewithal to keep up the fight if my child continued to falter. What's remarkable about the 999 conversation (available in full thanks to the Daily Telegraph) is just how calm Nolan sounds, even as Byrne gets increasingly frustrated with the operator as she tries to collect information and dispatch emergency workers (give him credit, he was stressed and he was still respectful!).

Notably, Nolan had been offered training in CPR before her son Emrys was released from the hospital. Because he was born prematurely, it was a precautionary measure offered by the hospital - and one that proved not just necessary but life-saving. I've heard from moms of premies who have gone through a whole ration of training; one told me the hospital even contacted her local ambulance corps to offer THEM training on how to deal with her son's specialized needs in case of emergency.

It's a happy story all around, especially for baby Emrys, who is doing just fine. How do you think you would have handled this one?

Image: Daily Telegraph

When is Too Young to Teach Them 911?

JeanneSager — Sun, 21 Sep 2008 12:41:00 GMT

Where my cell phone is, my 3-year-old usually isn’t. I’m not ready to pay the New York-to-Hong Kong rate. But news that a little boy in Scotland not only called emergency services on a cell phone when his mother collapsed but found a new mobile when the battery cut out makes me wonder.

Should my daughter be logging more time on the phone?

Three-year-old Jack Thomson called the UK version of 911 – 999 – when he found his mother lying unconscious on the hallway floor. With his father at work, the only other people in the house were his sisters, both younger. When the first phone went dead, Jack didn’t give up. He found another phone and dialed 999. Emergency workers broke into the apartment and saved Jack’s mom, Leanne, but they said she might have died if it weren’t for the 3-year-old’s fast thinking.

It’s made me start thinking about when we should start teaching our daughter how to act in an emergency. Jack Thomson is proof enough that 3 isn’t too young.

The biggest concern, of course, is how to convey when and where a 911-call is appropriate. We don’t need her calling police because Mommy has said no lollipops before dinner, and we don’t want her trying to call her grandparents by dialing 9 . . . 1 . . Kids need to understand the “emergency” concept and the dire consequences of prank calls to the emergency control center, something a 3-year-old isn’t likely to understand.

At this age it’s about teaching them the basics of how to place a call and what numbers to dial (always say nine, one, one rather than nine, eleven so they don’t start looking for an eleven on the phone), telling them it’s OK to be scared, telling them Mommy and Daddy sometimes need help from the police or the firemen, and then crossing our fingers that they never need to make that call.

Source: BBC News

Image: Phil Scoville

Prank Emergency Call Causes Fatal Crash

Amy S.F. Lutz — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 19:08:00 GMT

Experts estimate that as many as 35% of 911 calls are pranks. Fortunately, most of these are obvious - heavy breathing, swearing, disguised voices. But what happens when emergency crews actually respond to phony calls?

Well, it wastes the valuable time of paramedics, firefighters and police officers, to be sure. And perhaps these fake calls delay help from getting to people who really need it. Now, a woman in the UK has died and her ten-year-old daughter is in critical condition after their car was hit by a fire engine responding to what turned out to be a prank call.

Few details have been released about the accident, which happened yesterday and is still under investigation. South Yorkshire Police have reported that a 17-year-old boy was arrested for making the phony call.

Would it have been any less horrible for this family if the fire truck had been on its way to a real fire when the accident occurred? Somehow, I think it might have been. Now, they're just stuck dealing with an utterly senseless, completely unnecessary tragedy.

Elmo Goes to Guantanamo Bay

Cole Gamble — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 17:00:00 GMT

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911 Operator Talks Couple Through Home Birth

Amy S.F. Lutz — Thu, 29 May 2008 18:32:00 GMT

Is it just me, or have 911 operators been getting a bad rap lately? Callers have been kept on hold, kids in crisis have been accused of making up stories, help hasn't arrived in time. But Janet Jones, from Sarasota County, Florida, may have just redeemed 911 operators everywhere with the calm and capable way she talked Andrew and Dina Layne through an unplanned home birth.

Dina Layne was 37 weeks pregnant when her water broke. She had her husband call 911 for an ambulance, but the baby started to crown before the paramedics arrived. Although Jones, who has been a 911 operator for more than two years, had never handled a situation like this, she gave Andrew detailed instructions, including directing him to position Dina on the bed with her head raised, telling him to make sure his wife took deep breaths during contractions, and instructing him to support the baby's head and shoulders as it emerged. After baby Trevor was born, Jones walked Andrew through the process of tying off the umbilical cord with a shoelace.

You can listen to the entire 911 call here. My favorite part? When you can hear the happy tears in Jones' voice after the successful birth.

911 Is A(n Unfunny) Joke

Amy Kuras — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 20:06:00 GMT

Imagine this: you're five years old, and your mom has passed out on the floor and you can’t wake her up. Just like she told you to, you call 911 for help, only to be yelled at for "playing on the phone" and hung up on.

Two hours later, you call again, and a different 911 operator threatens to call the cops on you. She does send the police, who discover your mom, dead of an enlarged heart, on the floor and you there alone.

Breaks your heart, doesn’t it?

This actually happened here in Detroit to a little guy named Robert Turner. The two 911 operators involved were tried this week for willful neglect of duty, a misdemeanor. Charges against Terri Sutton, the operator who at least managed to send a police car, were dropped earlier this week but Sharon Nichols, who threatened the boy and hung up on him, was found guilty yesterday.

Yeah, yeah, whatever, being a 911 operator in a city like this one has to be a tough job, but I pay really insane taxes for city services like this and expect when a little kid reaches out for help, he'll get it. At a minimum. Unfortunately the charge is only a misdemeanor so I don't believe Nichols will be sentenced to any time.

But I hope to God that woman calls 911 someday and gets the same treatment she received.

Is That a Baby In Your Pants Or Are You Just Happy to See the Paramedics?

Kelly Mills — Sun, 06 Jan 2008 18:13:00 GMT

Sometimes you just have to love a "baby born in..." story. I mean, I've heard of babies being born in cars, in elevators, in fast food restaurant bathrooms, but I think this might be the first "Woman Gives Birth Inside Pants" headline I've ever seen. I'm sure many of us can report doing all kinds of things in our pants in our lifetimes, but I doubt many can say they dropped a baby. Does that mean the pants are true mom jeans? Maybe I was wrong about those birth clothes... Did I also mention she had twins?

So when Larryett Thomas went into labor, her mom called 911. But it was too late to get to the hospital, and when paramedics arrived, one baby was already coming out. Thomas had one leg of her pants on, which I guess qualifies as giving birth in your pants, especially since paramedics had to cut the pants off. They delivered the second baby by flashlight, because Thomas had no lamps. While I'm sure it was a little nerve-wracking for everyone, Thomas has done the whole birth thing before (she has five other children) so maybe that helped. She named the twins Curt and Curtis after their dad. Levis is a good name too.

Preschooler Calls 911 and Saves His Mom

Stefania Pomponi Butler (CityMama) — Tue, 01 May 2007 17:03:00 GMT

Thanks to some quick thinking on the part of four-year-old Tony Sharpe, his mother Courtnay is alive and well after collapsing during a gall bladder attack.

Little Tony learned to call 911 from a book sent to him by his grandparents, so when his mom fell unconscious he immediately knew what to do—he called for an ambulance. Apparently the little dude was thinking so calmly and clearly that he was able to describe his apartment building for the paramedics. I haven't had the "911 talk" with my own four-year-old yet, but after reading about Tony Sharpe, we're going to have a sit-down later today.

Tony told the dispatcher:

"Mommy is sick. Mommy needs an ambulance. Mommy fell over. She is sleeping. Can you call the ambulance? When Daddy gets here, Daddy will see if there's something wrong with mommy."

Brave kid. I'd like to give him a hug and kiss right now! Oh, and the name of that book (cuz I know you want to know): It's Time to Call 911: What to do in an Emergency.

South African Pre-Teen Busted for Prank 911 Calls

Sarah, Goon Squad Sarah — Wed, 10 Jan 2007 22:39:00 GMT

Tertia over at So Close found a real parenting nightmare. A 12 year old boy in South Africa got caught making prank calls to emergency centers.This kid got busted for calling in seven different false alarms to several different centers. Some of the calls resulted in very costly searches that dispatched ambulances and even rescue helicopters.

The kid was making the calls from his cell phone.

My kids are only two, so I don't have any idea how I would handle it if my 12 year old asked for a cell phone. I guess I would get him one if he promised to use it in an appropriate fashion and not use a bazillion minutes every month.

So, my question (and Tertia's question, actually) is how do you punish this offense? South Africa and the local authorities that are out all of that money cannot sue a 12 year old. How accountable is this pre-teen? How responsible are his parents?

How would you deal with it if it were your son?