911 Operators Share The 50 Dumbest Calls They Ever Received

Had an elderly lady in SC low country call and she was afraid someone had put a “root” on her, kinda like voodoo. Some white powder like flour had appeared on her porch and she didn’t know what to do. I asked her if she had a straw broom. She did. I told her to get the broom and a dustpan, walk backward out the door and to the mysterious powder, sweep it I to the dust pan and back up to the left side of her porch, throw the powder out over her left shoulder, dust the broom off well on the porch rail and that was that. She did it and was happy.

This will be piled in comments, but it's still stuck with me for my entire life. When I was younger, my mother was a paramedic supervisor. The dispatch desk was pretty much handled by the dispatcher - and whomever was closest to the phone. Pretty laid back environment. The 911 operator would transfer and relay the calls to the person answering the phone at the ambulance station. I would randomly answer often while I was there hanging out, just to feel important. I answered one day, and this guy said he got the wrong number. Now, the same phone was used to business lines and emergency transfers, so you had to pay attention to what light turned on when the phone rang. When I answered this man's call, he called the business line. He told me it was an accident. I misunderstood and thought said there HAD BEEN an accident. I immediately handed the phone to my mom so she could adult. My mom spoke to him for what seemed like hours. Turns out, the man was calling his daughter whom he hadn't spoken to in years. He was calling to tell her goodbye because he was going to end his life. I don't know if my mom was amazing at her job, or if it was fate. But that man, as far as I know, is still alive to this day and credits that to dialing the wrong number.
Not exactly a 911 call, but close.

I have had hundreds of parking complaints come in via 911.

My personal favorite, however. I had someone call 911 to complain about a city ordinance that their neighbor hadn't mowed their lawn. I had them call the non emergency number to report it. Which went to the person sitting next to me.

I made them look up the number and call to be spiteful. They didn't know the non emergency number and 911 went to two people in the same room.

The house in question with the unmowed lawn, belonged to an on duty police officer for that town. So we sent him to take the ordinance violation complaint from his neighbor on himself.

"I can't get this jar of peanut butter open and if I don't get the peanut butter in the feeder, the squirrels will be mad *maniacal laughter*"-frequent flier (mentally ill)

"There's a HUGE FIRE! Oh my god, get the fire department here now." It was the full moon shining through trees.

"Um, I let my parakeet out to get some air and now he's stuck in a tree..."-award winning event at the annual firefighter dinner for most entertaining call for service. Included gems such as "Unit 1400 on scene, no feathers showing from the outside, checking the area..." and "dispatch be advised, subject is a flight risk".

20 year 911 Dispatcher and Supervisor here. Had a guy call and ask if the line was recorded, I assured him all our lines were recorded. He started to recite his last will and testement and then shot himself. All 911 recordings are legal documents so he just saved money on a lawyer giving his will over the phone.

6:30 Christmas morning. 9-1-1 goes off. "9-1-1. what's your emergency?"

Breathless, panicky voice "How do I get the cranberry sauce out of the can without it coming out in chunks?"

"Open the other end and slide it out on a plate."

"OH! THANK YOU! You are brilliant!"


I wasn't considered so brilliant once I had to dispatch an officer over there to educate her on proper 9-1-1 usage. Merry Christmas, here's your citation.

Many, many years ago, (1962 or so)

I managed to rotary dial the Ohio State Highway Patrol and tell them to come arrest my Mom because she wouldn't let me go outside and play in the rain.

I was 4.

Back when I was in highschool, a group of boys were making prankcalls to emergency services.
The lunch lady who had tolerated a bunch of stuff from them had enough and called the non emergency line to report them. Police arrived, fined them and the boys got detention for a month.

I later learned that their parents were not amused and grounded them for the same month, and took all electronics so they couldn't communicate with each other outside of school. And the boys had to pay the fines with their own money, their parents wouldn't pay a single dime.

At school every other student was disgusted by their behavior and ignored them completely. The rest of the year the boys were incredibly well behaved.

My company has an emergency number for chemical/medical/facility emergencies, that forwards to my personal phone and rings an alarm that's probably guaranteed to raise me from the dead.

A manager realized this *was* a direct line to my personal phone that I would not ignore under any circumstances, and started calling the emergency number to reach me when I was off from work with issues like "an app on my PC can't find the network, help me right now". I am not the company's IT support.

Our director was extremely displeased with their poor judgement.

Not an operator, but my now-ex boyfriend who called in.

He usually worked a late shift, walking home about 2 am. This shift he got off work a few hours late...

BF: I'd like to call and report a fire. [We live in a fire prone area and it was the season.]

911: Where is it located sir?

BF: On the hillside just East of [City].

911: Can you be more specific? [_Typing away in the background._]

BF: Yes, [gives a more detailed location]. Oh god, it's getting bigger! The whole top of the hill is on fire now!

911: Stay calm sir, we're sending somebody out.

BF: It's getting bigger! Doesn't anybody else see this?! It's lighting up the sky around it...it's huge! Oh god! Oh...oh, wait...

911: Sir?

BF: I am SO sorry...I'm not usually out this time of night, I just got off work late...that's, that's the sun...

911: ...

BF: I am so, so sorry for wasting your time, there is no fire, that's just the sun rising. Never mind. I'm really embarrassed...

911: That's fine, Sir. I will cancel the call, thank you for calling.

EDIT: Former boyfriend said I forgot a detail so I added it in.

Guy called for a suspicious pkg on his porch. Cop comes out, picks it up, looks at it, then asks if he ordered anything from Amazon. Guy says “yes”. Cop hands him the pkg and says have a good day. Guy just says “sorry” and goes in the house.

Not a dispatcher but I worked security at a college and fielded the calls as I did my rounds.

The best story I have is a guy who called about a bobcat in front of the library. He called up out of breath and said there was a wild cat intimidating people so they could not enter or exit the building.

I was fairly close so I started to run over. I asked if anyone was injured and he said no. I was expecting a group of people held up at the entrance by a huge cat hissing at everyone. I told him to keep away from it and stay on the line.



When I got there I found a tabby cat perched on a bench.



I verified the caller and the cat he called about. I went over to the cat with him and started pet him, he rolled over and let me scratch his belly.

The guy was shocked and said "oh, someone has domesticated it."

Yup. I smiled and walked away.

I was a 911 dispatcher for just under a year. Realized that it is NOT for me. A lot if respect for those peeps! This was in Gilbert, Arizona (if you know about this place this story shouldn't surprise you). The call came in from an elderly woman because there was a "black guy" at the park. I asked her what he was doing she said "Nothing, he's just sitting there." So I asked her what the problem was. Her response was "he shouldn't be there". I almost sent the cops to her place to pick her up as a mentally unstable person.

Not an 911 operator but I work in the ER and the amount of young men (typically) who come in after their first major hangover always has me laughing.

To those who are angry or upset about this please know we can see the difference between alcohol poisoning and a bad hangover.

Not an operator; I'm a prosecutor. Guy lived in a rooming house that had a public area where all the residents could hang out. It had a microwave in it provided by the landlord. Guy called 911 around midnight one night *because the microwave wasn't there*. The conversation with the dispatcher went something like this:

**Dispatcher:** "So... you called 911 because a microwave you don't even own is missing? Did you ask your landlord if he took it?"

**Guy:** "Uh, no."

**Dispatcher:** "Well, that's not an emergency, sir."

**Guy:** "But I'm really hungry."

Meanwhile, a person with an actual emergency had to be put on hold briefly because this guy was adamant that this was the worst thing to ever happen. The genius insisted that police officers be sent to his rooming house ASAP because of the missing microwave. Officers showed up--so they could cite him for improper use of 911.

The guy pleaded Not Guilty and requested a *jury trial*. He represented himself. The jury was out 20 minutes before it announced its Guilty verdict.

Oh dear god, time to shine. Had a lady trying to call an ambulance because she opened a package from Amazon at home and she was afraid that that her kid was about to have a major allergic reaction... From the packing Peanuts.... because the kid was allergic to peanuts, and when her kid mentioned what they were called, she freaked out.

Not a dispatcher but when I was in EMS we were dispatched to a psych call. When we got there this lady was standing out side her house ready to go to the hospital. On the way to the hospital I was talking to her and trying to get her vitals when she told me there was nothing wrong with her that she heard a family member was in the hospital and needed a ride, so she called 911. Cops met us at the hospital for her.

Someone called 911 because their cat looked “sad.” I didn’t know whether to cry or laugh.

My mum’s town will post police/911 activity in the newspaper. It’s so often not criminal activity, and when it is it’s usually teenagers checking car doors but not actually stealing anything.

More often than anything else it’s bored, quietly racist, retirees calling whenever they see a brown person. Example: “Complained of strange woman entering neighbour’s home. No forced entry. Officers greeted by neighbour’s new housekeeper.”.

I don’t work for 911 but I used to work at a restaurant and we had a guy one time who called 911 because we refused to serve him alcohol. 1 he looked like he was 16 years old and didn’t have an ID. 2 he was already so drunk he couldn’t actually manage to sit on a barstool and not fall off.

And we were fairly sure he drove there. One of our managers was actually on the phone calling the nonemergency police line to see if somebody could come pick him up and dump him in the drunk tank when this guy decides to call 911 that we won’t serve him liquor.