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How Emergency Call Lines Became A Thing · Ridiculous History

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Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to
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Speaker 1: the show, Ridiculous Historians. Thank you so much for tuning in.
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Speaker 1: The call is coming from inside the house.
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Speaker 2: No, ye.
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Speaker 1: Mean it means it's time to introduce our super producer,
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Speaker 1: mister Max Williams.
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Speaker 2: Is he the one calling from inside the house? You creep, Max,
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Speaker 2: Get out of my house.
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Speaker 3: No, No, I am the emergency call.
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Speaker 1: Of the heart.
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Speaker 4: Now you sure are?
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Speaker 1: That's that's what it means.
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Speaker 4: I don't know if it's that or good, but that's
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Speaker 4: just what I'm going with your regular emotional nine to eleven.
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Speaker 1: That's all.
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Speaker 4: I should find a different way to say that.
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Speaker 1: Sorry, that's our that's our man, the myth legend, mister
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Speaker 1: Noel Brown. They called me Ben Bullen in this neck
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Speaker 1: of the Global woods. And today we are looking at
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Speaker 1: one of the few telephone numbers that everyone knows and
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Speaker 1: that no one wants to call.
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Speaker 4: Is it eight six, seven, five, three nine, nine?
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Speaker 1: Oh Jenny, we got your number.
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Speaker 4: It's on the wall. That's kind of you know.
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Speaker 2: I never really thought about what the implications of that
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Speaker 2: until later in life. Does that mean it was written
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Speaker 2: on a bathroom stall? Does it go into detail anyway,
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Speaker 2: it doesn't matter you're here. It may be a figurative wall.
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Speaker 2: It may be the wall of true love. That is
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Speaker 2: not the number we're talking about today.
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Speaker 1: We're also not talking about one eight blah blah blah
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Speaker 1: cars for kids, although I do have another side project
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Speaker 1: I'm working on with that and cars for kids. Just
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Speaker 1: so you guys know, is a conspiracy. No, yes, is
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Speaker 1: it as bad as kids for cars? It is worse
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Speaker 1: because it's real.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly, so letting me down. No, I mean, I said,
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Speaker 2: Max is an emotional nine to eleven of the Heart
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Speaker 2: of the Mind, the movie The Ride. You know, some
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Speaker 2: people call it nine to eleven, I guess, but we
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Speaker 2: know it may be more. In the state says nine
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Speaker 2: one one.
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Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, we all are familiar with the idea of
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Speaker 1: nine to one one. If you are a ridiculous historian
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Speaker 1: who has been who has spent any time in the
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Speaker 1: United States, in Canada, and as we'll see, in several
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Speaker 1: other countries, nine one one is one of the easiest
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Speaker 1: numbers to call in not just the United States, but
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Speaker 1: in Canada, Argentina, the Dominican Republic, Fiji, Jordan, Iraq, Mexico, Pakistan, Palau, Panama,
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Speaker 1: the Philippines. The list goes on Otama, Macau. Macau actually
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Speaker 1: has a different number that does the same thing.
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Speaker 2: As does the UK, which, if I'm not mistaken from
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Speaker 2: my brickcom experience, it's nine to nine to nine.
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Speaker 1: Yes, And originally Parliament broke out in raucous laughter about
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Speaker 1: it because it sounds like a German saying no three
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Speaker 1: times in a row.
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Speaker 2: You know what, I'll always remember you guys, remember the
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Speaker 2: Little Rascals movie from the nineties. I think there's I'm
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Speaker 2: pretty sure it's from that movie. There's a character of
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Speaker 2: maybe Spanky or one of those other little rascals.
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Speaker 4: He says, what's the number for nine?
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Speaker 1: One one? Be careful with that joke.
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Speaker 4: It's adorable.
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Speaker 1: Careful with that joke. It's an antique. As they say,
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Speaker 1: I love it. It's barely a joke. It's an observation. There
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Speaker 1: are also other countries that may use like we said, nine,
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Speaker 1: nine nine or one one two one one two and
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Speaker 1: nine one one are the globally dominant emergency numbers now,
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Speaker 1: but the concept, as we're saying, is always the same,
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Speaker 1: A very short, simple series of digits that allow a
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Speaker 1: to in theory immediately connect with emergency services. You'll get
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Speaker 1: help on everything from forest fires to arson to car
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Speaker 1: accidents to injuries to more. We do want to start
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Speaker 1: off by saying in this episode at the very top,
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Speaker 1: sometimes people have different definitions of what constitutes an emergency.
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Speaker 1: Don't call nine to one one for shizzles and giggles.
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Speaker 4: Man, it's funny you say that.
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Speaker 2: I was literally just googling is it really illegal to
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Speaker 2: call nine to one one? And there's varying degrees of
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Speaker 2: you know, what would actually be actionable.
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Speaker 4: I think you know you did it by accident. You
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Speaker 4: hung up?
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Speaker 2: Whatever, I do remember calling back, they will call you
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Speaker 2: about to say, But what's been in the news a
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Speaker 2: lot lately is this concept of swatting, where people make
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Speaker 2: these elaborate prank nine to one one calls reporting Syria
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Speaker 2: crimes that result in swat teams being deployed, and it
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Speaker 2: is sometimes used to like terrorize people to have their
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Speaker 2: houses like rated, you know, as some sort of doxing
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Speaker 2: esque Internet I guess I don't know manipulation.
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Speaker 4: Exactly. It's psyop, is what it is.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, it's the other Other genres of that kind of
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Speaker 1: aggression would be things like calling in a bunch of
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Speaker 1: pizza orders to an address after you doct someone or
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Speaker 1: another one that's happened on the social media forum Reddit
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Speaker 1: quite often. Reddit has the option to report someone for
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Speaker 1: suicidal ideation, and so when people disagree with each other
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Speaker 1: on a Reddit, for them, they will sometimes frank. I
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Speaker 1: guess prank is too light a word, but you know
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Speaker 1: what I mean. They'll they'll report someone to get their
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Speaker 1: account in trouble.
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Speaker 2: Well, speaking of the Brits, so one of my favorite
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Speaker 2: British comedies of all time, I'm as peep Show, which
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Speaker 2: I think you guys are fond of too, and there's
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Speaker 2: an episode called sectioning where the characters take various times
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Speaker 2: report each other for mental illness, which is what is
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Speaker 2: referred to as having someone sections, whereas in these states
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Speaker 2: we'd call it having someone committed I guess. But the
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Speaker 2: episode's all about them basically prank sectioning each other.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, because Peep Show is all about two really stand
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Speaker 1: up guys who happen to be wholesome and supportive roommates.
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Speaker 4: Yeah that's not right, but I just see what you're doing.
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Speaker 2: It's a great show and one of my favorite characters
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Speaker 2: of all time, super Hot yes.
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Speaker 1: I'm still I forgive you writers a peep Show for
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Speaker 1: confusing me I've for years, which would also be raped
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Speaker 1: the Coolena.
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Speaker 2: I love that too, because he's you know, sorry to
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Speaker 2: get to in about peep Show, but he and Jazz,
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Speaker 2: one of the other main characters, are in this kind
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Speaker 2: of like failed fake techno band, like like kind of
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Speaker 2: trying to copy the Prodigy and Superhands as a techno
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Speaker 2: persona name totally works.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it's it's a great show. I'll tell you,
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Speaker 1: folks honestly ridiculous historians. Due to my past, I have
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Speaker 1: a pretty strong stomach, but that's one of my weak spots.
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Speaker 4: I cringe.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, I can. I can witness tremendous acts of violence,
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Speaker 1: like the kind of stuff you'd have to call nine
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Speaker 1: one one for. But show me social awkwardness and I
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Speaker 1: am leaving the room. I don't know why it's such
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Speaker 1: a trigger.
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Speaker 4: It's so funny. I just saw.
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Speaker 2: I've been I don't know, I'm really fascinated by these
7:37
Speaker 2: Terrifier movies, but I don't really want to watch them.
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Speaker 2: So I've been listening and watching a lot of YouTube
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Speaker 2: kind of recaps of them, and one person was like,
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Speaker 2: you know, The most egregious thing in this new Terrifier
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Speaker 2: movie is not the dismemberments. It is not the blood bats.
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Speaker 2: It is the one particular moment of cringe because I
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Speaker 2: can't handle that.
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Speaker 1: Okay, I hope I wasn't the one posting that. But
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Speaker 1: that's awesome because it also reminds me of the key
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Speaker 1: and Peal sketch that is descended from the Terrifier, which
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Speaker 1: is all about having a good attitude. I'll send it
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Speaker 1: to you guys after we record but one.
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Speaker 4: Actually, it's funny.
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Speaker 2: We just talked about nine nine nine and the Brits
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Speaker 2: a whole bunch. They figure heavily into the story of
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Speaker 2: the creation of nine to one one. But before we
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Speaker 2: get to them, let us venture back in time to
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Speaker 2: the United States of the nineteen sixties, when there was
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Speaker 2: not a universal phone number for Americans to call if
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Speaker 2: they needed emergency services. If I'm not mistaken, Ben, it
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Speaker 2: was a matter of calling the operator, like I think
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Speaker 2: you could still in those days, just dial zero.
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Speaker 4: And I was actually gonna ask you, Ben, does that
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Speaker 4: still work? If you hit zero? Does it do anything?
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Speaker 4: Because I don't even have a landline.
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Speaker 1: It depends on it depends on where you live and
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Speaker 1: what kind of telephonic device you're engaging with. So there
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Speaker 1: are Weirdly enough, there are still rotary phones that are
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Speaker 1: in use in the United States.
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Speaker 4: Now.
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Speaker 1: They're typically more evolved than they were in the earlier days.
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Speaker 1: Like you were saying, Noel. In the earlier days, you
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Speaker 1: would pick up the phone. You might not even have
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Speaker 1: to dial zero. You would pick up the phone.
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Speaker 4: That's right, the.
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Speaker 1: Marriage board right there immediately upon picking up, and then
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Speaker 1: you would just sort of name a thing or an extension.
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Speaker 1: There were also, as we knew it did in our
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Speaker 1: previous episode on using barbed wires, phone lines. They were
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Speaker 1: cool storylines.
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Speaker 2: A personal It was like a party line for a
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Speaker 2: community of farms and absolutely worth checking out because it's
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Speaker 2: a good example of just good old fashioned American ingenuity.
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Speaker 2: But in large cities this was tough, oh, because they'd
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Speaker 2: get these switchboards would get overloaded, and I mean the
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Speaker 2: switchboards systems, I can I always my mind boggles at
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Speaker 2: the logistics of these poor switchboard operators.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, think about even in the nineteen sixties, really any
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Speaker 1: city post World War two economic boom in the United
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Speaker 1: States States, there's more than one fire department there's more
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Speaker 1: than one police department. They cover different areas, they have
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Speaker 1: different turfs and different jurisdictions. So if you call in
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Speaker 1: an emergency the wrong fire department, you're going to have
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Speaker 1: to wait for them to contact the right fire department.
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Speaker 2: A place like Los Angeles, for all intents and purposes,
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Speaker 2: is like its own country in so Shure, there's all
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Speaker 2: these different municipalities with different governments and different emergency services.
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Speaker 4: There is no one stop shop for any of that stuff.
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Speaker 1: And in this fashion, up until the actually the late
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Speaker 1: nineteen sixties, the United States was pretty behind the global times.
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Speaker 1: The world's oldest emergency call service is not American at all.
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Speaker 1: It is British. It was launched in London on June thirtieth,
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Speaker 1: nineteen thirty seven, two years after a tremendous tragedy London Town.
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Speaker 4: In a home on Wimpole Streets.
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Speaker 2: There was a horrible fire that led to the deaths
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Speaker 2: of five women. This was in November of nineteen thirty five.
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Speaker 2: Norman McDonald's not the community used with our buddy Norm
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Speaker 2: Rip was a dentist who lived in the house on
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Speaker 2: the other side of the street. He tried to call
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Speaker 2: the or as they might stay in the UK ring
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Speaker 2: the fire brigade, and he was put on hold and
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Speaker 2: put in a telephone queue, and he essentially had to
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Speaker 2: wait so long that these lives were essentially lost. And
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Speaker 2: I do want to say that I only just recently,
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Speaker 2: for the first time and probably probably ever, had to
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Speaker 2: make a legitimate nine one one call. Here in Decatur, Georgia,
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Speaker 2: there was a guy who bailed out really horribly on
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Speaker 2: a dirt bike right outside my house and cracked a
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Speaker 2: skull on the street.
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Speaker 4: It was one of the craziest things I've seen. But
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Speaker 4: I was on hold with nine to one one for
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Speaker 4: quite a while.
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Speaker 2: So let's not kid ourselves that things are like magically
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Speaker 2: better in the big cities now just because of nine
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Speaker 2: to one one.
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Speaker 4: Just want to get that out in the open right upfront.
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Speaker 1: It's also a known problem with the system that depending
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Speaker 1: upon where you live, nine one one may be more
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Speaker 1: or less responsive. It's a common issue. Unfortunately, it's one
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Speaker 1: that people are still struggling to address in.
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Speaker 4: The areas certain demographics.
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Speaker 2: Let's just say, they'll perhaps say reticence to be quicker,
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Speaker 2: you know what, that does imply intent on the part
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Speaker 2: of law enforcement, and maybe we should give them the
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Speaker 2: benefit of the doubt. It's a resource thing. It's a resource.
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Speaker 2: I think it is that more than trying not to
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Speaker 2: help certain people. But it is a thing that you
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Speaker 2: do see on these maps where it's like, you know,
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Speaker 2: people in underserved areas, minorities, maybe poorer areas, it sometimes
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Speaker 2: is harder for them to get to that support. Right,
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Speaker 2: you will be on hold.
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Speaker 1: So our guy, Norman McDonald is livid. He is furious,
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Speaker 1: he has righteous indignation, and so he's calling about an emergency.
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Speaker 1: People's lives are on the line, and then he gets
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Speaker 1: held in what the British would call a Q He's
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Speaker 1: on hold and as he's on hold, as a result
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Speaker 1: of this, five people die. So he writes a letter.
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Speaker 1: He takes it upon himself to write to the paper
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Speaker 1: of note, which is still a very big deal paper
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Speaker 1: in the UK, The Times. The Times, Yeah, not the
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Speaker 1: New York Times, that's JV stuff O. The Times, yeah,
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Speaker 1: and they this launches a full government inquiry. Public outcry
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Speaker 1: ensues because McDonald's letter is published in the Times, and
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Speaker 1: everybody who reads the paper, which is pretty much everybody
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Speaker 1: at this point in history, they are joined with him.
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Speaker 1: They agree and so the UK government sets up a
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Speaker 1: committee and says, let's make let's make it so people
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Speaker 1: don't have to wait at the switchboard or wait and
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Speaker 1: Q when there's an emergency. We're going to have a
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Speaker 1: number anyone can dial free of charge that will get us,
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Speaker 1: get us the opportunity to save lives.
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Speaker 2: Mm hmm. The afore I mentioned nine nine nine, which
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Speaker 2: was their second choice after six six six. They thought
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Speaker 2: that was a little too on the nose for the
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Speaker 2: conspiracy theorists of the world. I'm sorry I had to
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Speaker 2: put on my stuff. They don't want you to know
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Speaker 2: how we talk a lot about like British conspiracies involving
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Speaker 2: the you know, the Crown still being in control of
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Speaker 2: the United States, and they're kind of one of the
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Speaker 2: originators of a lot of these Luciferian Illuminati type conspiracies.
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Speaker 4: So I do love the idea that when you.
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Speaker 2: See nine nine nine on paper, it straight up is
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Speaker 2: six six six inverted. Yeah yeah, yeah, same, just same.
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Speaker 1: And this was a good number because at the time
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Speaker 1: when they when they cooked up this idea, there were
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Speaker 1: only three million home telephones in the country, so the
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Speaker 1: majority of people are going to be calling from these
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Speaker 1: coin operated the iconic red telephone booths. Does it light
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Speaker 1: up at the time? It did not, But the.
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Speaker 2: Bat phone type situation, the situation room type situation.
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Speaker 1: I see where you're going. Yeah, But the thing is
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Speaker 1: the rotary dials at home and in these public telephone booths.
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Speaker 1: So it was easy to customize the free use of
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Speaker 1: this number, nine being one of the longer numbers to dial.
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Speaker 1: But if you just did nine three times right, then
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Speaker 1: it would the system would know that there was something
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Speaker 1: a miss occurring.
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Speaker 2: Well, it's funny too when you think and I realize
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Speaker 2: what you're talking about now, but you're talking about those
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Speaker 2: classic red British you know, telephone boxes, of course, yeah,
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Speaker 2: but I mean the physical thing they're like so iconic.
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Speaker 2: That's what I was about to say. Man, that we
15:57
Speaker 2: think about it now, how easy it is, you know.
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Speaker 4: Be boop poop. But back then you had to really
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Speaker 4: be committed to get all the way phone number.
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Speaker 1: Did you ever use a rotary phone?
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Speaker 4: I have had.
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Speaker 2: My granddad had one, same and yeah, their while and
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Speaker 2: you really kind of it's easy to lose track.
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Speaker 4: It's almost like communicating in Morris code or something.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, it's also kind of you know this ages us
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Speaker 1: a bit, but one of the uh, one of the
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Speaker 1: weirdest analogs to entering a phone number on a rotary
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Speaker 1: phone that I can think about today.
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Speaker 4: In America texting any any.
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Speaker 1: Gamer or anybody who has to log into an app
16:33
Speaker 1: all and say like a PlayStation or something. You have
16:35
Speaker 1: to pull up the keyboard on the screen. You have
16:38
Speaker 1: to do do do balk.
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Speaker 4: But that's how texting used to be balk initially too.
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Speaker 2: You had to use the numbers on your phone, and
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Speaker 2: for like A, that would be two, and B would
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Speaker 2: be two to two and each letter number represented three
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Speaker 2: possible letters, and depending on how many times you punch
16:55
Speaker 2: the button, you'd get that letter.
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Speaker 4: So that's what I think of as well. Then that's
16:58
Speaker 4: super interesting.
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Speaker 1: Remember when remember when we first got the phone number
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Speaker 1: for stuff they don't want, you know? And I made
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Speaker 1: it this dumb sing along jingle. I totally misstep, dude,
17:09
Speaker 1: because we still only say the abbreviation of the show
17:14
Speaker 1: std WYTK, and we never told people the number.
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Speaker 4: Yeah, there's a two. It's branding, bro, it's branding there.
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Speaker 1: Thank you for that.
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Speaker 2: I couldn't even tell you what the numbers are, but
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Speaker 2: there have to be seven of them, right, yeah, yeah,
17:31
Speaker 2: so we've.
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Speaker 1: Got we'll fast forward to June thirtieth, nineteen thirty seven.
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Speaker 1: Sir Walter Walmersley, in addition to having an hilariously British name,
17:43
Speaker 1: is the assistant Postmaster General. He says, look, we're going
17:47
Speaker 1: to He goes to the House of Commons, which is
17:50
Speaker 1: the people who earned their parliamentary position. And I walked
17:54
Speaker 1: down the street for that one.
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Speaker 4: No, no, no, let's go with it.
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Speaker 1: So he says, look, we're going to make this new
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Speaker 1: emergency service. We are going to try it out kind
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Speaker 1: of a pilot or test run in London. And when
18:09
Speaker 1: he told them, or when it was announced that the
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Speaker 1: number would be nine nine nine, uh, the room burst
18:17
Speaker 1: into raucous laughter.
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Speaker 4: Is this your theory, Ben the German thing?
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Speaker 1: Or do you read that somewhere this historical speculation?
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Speaker 4: This is so interesting.
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Speaker 2: I didn't think the idea that maybe because of the
18:28
Speaker 2: embroilments and world affairs and all of that, at this point,
18:32
Speaker 2: the Germans been front page news and saying it's very
18:40
Speaker 2: uh yeah, I could picture that in a Hitler.
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Speaker 4: In fact, it's happened definitely.
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Speaker 1: Oh that makes me remember the Hitler meme. Oh gosh,
18:52
Speaker 1: I can't remember the name of the film NOL, but
18:55
Speaker 1: you recall it's Downfall.
18:58
Speaker 2: That's the one with Bruno Gans playing Hitler and it
19:02
Speaker 2: is fabulous.
19:03
Speaker 4: He was also in a Wings of Desire. He's a
19:05
Speaker 4: fabulous actor.
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Speaker 1: There's this great clip that for years the Internet has
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Speaker 1: taken and dubbed over.
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Speaker 2: To the situation room, Yeah, to being a document getting
19:15
Speaker 2: told bad news and.
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Speaker 1: He's plaiting and everybody just changes what the bad news is.
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Speaker 1: It's so niche.
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Speaker 2: He gradually gets more and more enraged and it's one
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Speaker 2: of those perfect things where you can escalate it. And
19:27
Speaker 2: it's almost like the meme of the people sitting at
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Speaker 2: like a table and saying, ask me about whatever, tell
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Speaker 2: me I'm.
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Speaker 1: Wrong, Yeah, yeah, yes, change my mind.
19:35
Speaker 4: Very malleable. I love memes.
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Speaker 1: This, however, does not become a countrywide system just yet.
19:48
Speaker 1: The initial nine to nine to nine operation or trial.
19:52
Speaker 1: It covers about a twelve mile radius originating from Oxford Circus,
19:59
Speaker 1: which is just to get in front of it for
20:01
Speaker 1: any Americans who haven't visited Oxford Circus. Not a circus,
20:06
Speaker 1: it's a traffic juncture.
20:07
Speaker 2: Neither is Piccadilly Circus, right, a more famous one. And
20:10
Speaker 2: I for years truly believed that there are elephants and
20:14
Speaker 2: clowns and and peanuts and crackerjacks and stuff. I was
20:18
Speaker 2: hoping not the case. It's just like a big busy area,
20:20
Speaker 2: if I'm not mistaken. It's kind of considered like a
20:23
Speaker 2: like a hub. But British listeners, right, is to let
20:26
Speaker 2: us know if we're getting with what the idea of
20:27
Speaker 2: a British circus is. And do you call the circus
20:30
Speaker 2: the circus in Britain or do they call it a
20:32
Speaker 2: funfair or something like them?
20:34
Speaker 1: That's a slow horses question. The circus is also a
20:37
Speaker 1: term for intelligence operations.
20:39
Speaker 4: That's a good point.
20:40
Speaker 2: So the Joe's I love the Joe's Man, This show
20:44
Speaker 2: is good.
20:44
Speaker 1: Watch Joe's cover that.
20:48
Speaker 4: He's my Joe. He's my Joe, all right, it's so good.
20:52
Speaker 1: Shout out Gary Oldman, what a great one.
20:54
Speaker 4: He doesn't need it, but we love you.
20:56
Speaker 1: I'm actually I ordered the books. I'm going to read
20:59
Speaker 1: the books.
20:59
Speaker 2: To there's more books that have yet to be produced,
21:02
Speaker 2: I believe too. There's you know, I'm sorry we're a
21:04
Speaker 2: fanboing too much about slow horses, but please do do
21:06
Speaker 2: yourself a favorite, because I swear I don't understand why
21:09
Speaker 2: it still seems so under the radar. Those Apple shows
21:12
Speaker 2: they don't give it any promo, and I don't get why,
21:15
Speaker 2: because there it's some fabulous stuff.
21:16
Speaker 1: On amazing stuff. Yeah, shout out severance as well. So
21:21
Speaker 1: the public has to be taught how to use this thing,
21:24
Speaker 1: how to understand what nine nine is. It's not just
21:28
Speaker 1: a German in denial. It's three. It's the three. Uh,
21:34
Speaker 1: it's the three digits you dial when this something goes wrong.
21:38
Speaker 1: And they spend a great deal of time.
21:40
Speaker 4: Bad campaign of some sort, right right.
21:42
Speaker 1: Trying to teach the public what constitutes a serious emergency,
21:46
Speaker 1: and the way they explained it back in the Times.
21:49
Speaker 1: This is reported by our friends at the BBC. They said, if,
21:53
Speaker 1: for instance, the man in the flat next to yours
21:56
Speaker 1: is murdering his wife, well you have seen it heavily
21:59
Speaker 1: masked cats of the peeriod round the stock Pot Bank building.
22:05
Speaker 1: So they say, they say, you can, you can report suspicious,
22:11
Speaker 1: but you can't. You shouldn't call just because you know
22:16
Speaker 1: you misplaced.
22:16
Speaker 2: Your keys, but also if you're doing a Jimmy store
22:19
Speaker 2: rare window kind of situation.
22:21
Speaker 4: Uh, it is.
22:22
Speaker 2: It is definitely on the table. They might just think
22:24
Speaker 2: you're a kookie, shut in crank and have not witnessed
22:27
Speaker 2: a murder at all, and you should just stop letting
22:29
Speaker 2: your imagination run wild.
22:31
Speaker 4: And sorry, I recently watched her window.
22:34
Speaker 1: It's a real Uh the eccentric who called wolf, situation
22:38
Speaker 1: or cried wolf. Every country today now, every country with
22:42
Speaker 1: an emergency call system has encountered their own share of
22:46
Speaker 1: a name super out there wackadoo calls, sometimes pranks, sometimes
22:51
Speaker 1: just really misled people.
22:54
Speaker 4: Uh.
22:56
Speaker 1: A favorite genre of this, we'll get to some of
22:58
Speaker 1: this at the end, has been at least in my mind,
23:01
Speaker 1: you guys, it's when people call to report that someone
23:06
Speaker 1: has stolen their illegal drugs.
23:08
Speaker 2: Oh, it's comical, yeah, I mean it just the level
23:11
Speaker 2: of boneheadedness, Like, what do you think is going to happen? Man,
23:15
Speaker 2: It's like, you can't call. If you're calling to report
23:18
Speaker 2: illegal activity that you yourself are a part of, you're
23:21
Speaker 2: basically telling on yourself.
23:23
Speaker 4: Like, oh man, it's ridiculous.
23:26
Speaker 1: But we know that, all right, We know that the
23:30
Speaker 1: Kingdom led the charge on this. Other countries in the
23:32
Speaker 1: world started listening. In the first city in North America
23:37
Speaker 1: to use a central emergency number. Wasn't from the United States.
23:43
Speaker 1: They're still behind in the game.
23:45
Speaker 2: No, it was actually in Canada, when we're talking about
23:49
Speaker 2: the continent of North America, Winnipeg, Manitoba in nineteen fifty nine.
23:55
Speaker 2: This again came from some pretty serious urging from a
23:59
Speaker 2: political fear whether or not he was getting an earfull.
24:03
Speaker 4: From his constituents or whatever.
24:05
Speaker 2: Mayor Steven Juba, which also for some reason appears to
24:09
Speaker 2: be a very quintessentially Winnipegian name.
24:12
Speaker 4: I'm just gonna believe that.
24:14
Speaker 2: But like the UK, Winnipeg originally used nine nine nine
24:17
Speaker 2: as well for their emergency number, but then they decided
24:21
Speaker 2: to walk in step.
24:22
Speaker 4: With the US when they switched to nine one one.
24:25
Speaker 1: Yeah. And in the United States, we'll see a series
24:30
Speaker 1: of somewhat tragic events that, just like in the case
24:34
Speaker 1: of the United Kingdom, that lead to the creation of
24:37
Speaker 1: emergency phone numbers. In the US, there was this push
24:41
Speaker 1: that came about post World War two nineteen fifty seven
24:45
Speaker 1: from the National Association of Fire Chiefs, and they were
24:50
Speaker 1: saying or echoing the same problem that we knew about,
24:53
Speaker 1: which is, you know, how can you expect people in
24:57
Speaker 1: an emergency to have the number of their local fire
25:01
Speaker 1: department memorized. So they said, let's save some lives, let's
25:05
Speaker 1: stop some fires, let's have a single number at least
25:09
Speaker 1: for calling fire departments. And that people said, okay, that's
25:14
Speaker 1: a good idea. Nice one, buddy, but they didn't really
25:18
Speaker 1: act on it until again, just as in London, it
25:22
Speaker 1: took a tragedy to push the idea forward.
25:25
Speaker 4: Yeah, a little, but I know, a little trigger warning here.
25:27
Speaker 2: We are going to talk about some sexual assaults, some
25:31
Speaker 2: sexual violence, not in detail, but if that's triggering it,
25:33
Speaker 2: I'll to you maybe just skip ahead about thirty seconds
25:36
Speaker 2: or so. Nineteen sixty four is when the sexual assault
25:39
Speaker 2: and murder of Kitty Genoviz took the public by storm
25:43
Speaker 2: in New York City. It was at an absolute scandal
25:47
Speaker 2: sensation like oj Simpson level galvanization of the public, and
25:52
Speaker 2: subsequently the government to create a central emergency number.
25:56
Speaker 1: Yeah, and a lot of this came about because the
26:00
Speaker 1: New York Times misreported part of the story. They said
26:06
Speaker 1: everybody could hear Genevieve's crying for help during the commission
26:12
Speaker 1: of these awful crimes, and that the people who heard
26:16
Speaker 1: her in New York City looked out their windows and watched,
26:20
Speaker 1: or closed their windows and ignored it. Yeah, apparently, well,
26:24
Speaker 1: the Times, The New York Times said that there were
26:26
Speaker 1: thirty eight bystanders who turned their back on this innocent
26:32
Speaker 1: woman dying in such a horrific way. This would later
26:37
Speaker 1: lead to the concept of what we call the bystander effect,
26:41
Speaker 1: the bystander effect just for side note, folks, the bystander
26:45
Speaker 1: effect is the inaction of people in groups when they
26:49
Speaker 1: feel that they are observers. That's why you could see
26:53
Speaker 1: it today when you look at public altercations or crimes
26:58
Speaker 1: and you're wondering, why is it anyone helping? Why is
27:01
Speaker 1: everybody on their phone right just filming?
27:04
Speaker 2: It's that bubble effect. It's that sensation of being disconnected.
27:09
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's not that these people are necessarily malicious.
27:13
Speaker 1: It's a version of the fight eyereezer fawn also true. Yeah,
27:18
Speaker 1: so the best way to get around that. By the way, folks,
27:21
Speaker 1: we hope you never have to be in this situation.
27:23
Speaker 1: But if you are resuscitating someone, or if you're trying
27:27
Speaker 1: to staunch a wound, you are in a public space.
27:30
Speaker 1: When you say called nine one one to someone never
27:34
Speaker 1: say somebody called nine one one. You don't know if
27:36
Speaker 1: anybody will. You point to someone, you make eye contact
27:40
Speaker 1: and you say.
27:41
Speaker 4: You do this or just do it, and you know.
27:45
Speaker 2: Maybe there's also a sense with the bystander effective people
27:48
Speaker 2: not wanting to get involved for personal reasons. Perhaps they're
27:53
Speaker 2: concerned that it might get them in trouble or whatever.
27:56
Speaker 2: This led to the creation of these things called good
27:58
Speaker 2: Samaritan laws that are a sense actually a micro version
28:02
Speaker 2: of immunity if you are participating in the reporting of
28:06
Speaker 2: a crime or someone being in danger.
28:09
Speaker 1: Yeah, good, I love that you're bringing that up. A
28:11
Speaker 1: good Samaritan law is something that offers legal protection to
28:17
Speaker 1: someone who helps another person in distress. It means that
28:23
Speaker 1: if you are if you are voluntarily helping someone who
28:28
Speaker 1: is a victim of something, you cannot be later sued
28:32
Speaker 1: for doing the wrong thing. Also, speaking of our pals
28:38
Speaker 1: Mitchell and Webb, I want to shout out their excellent
28:40
Speaker 1: sketch and Mitchell Webb look about good Samaritans.
28:43
Speaker 4: Do you remember that that one is not ringing a
28:46
Speaker 4: bell right off the rim.
28:49
Speaker 1: It's funny, you could tell David.
28:50
Speaker 4: It always great. Oh, I love those guys.
28:52
Speaker 2: Yeah, and if anyone isn't familiar, they are also the
28:54
Speaker 2: stars of Peep Show, and they have a sketch comedy
28:57
Speaker 2: show called that Mitchell and Webb look that is also
28:59
Speaker 2: worth your time.
29:01
Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, And speaking of the time, we know that
29:05
Speaker 1: New York Times, for one reason or another got this
29:09
Speaker 1: story wrong or embellished it. And later historians would have
29:14
Speaker 1: a theory about this. They would say, maybe people weren't
29:17
Speaker 1: calling police because it was so complex to do so.
29:21
Speaker 1: Any calls that you made to the police, if you
29:24
Speaker 1: knew the number, because there's not a nine to one
29:27
Speaker 1: one number yet, they would go to a local precinct.
29:30
Speaker 1: And any response that precincts could do would depend on
29:35
Speaker 1: whether there was an individual sergeant or other ranking personnel
29:40
Speaker 1: that might handle the call. Otherwise it might say, oh,
29:42
Speaker 1: we've gone home for the day.
29:44
Speaker 2: Well there's not You know, at anytime there's a sense
29:46
Speaker 2: of futility, you know, for an act like that, people
29:49
Speaker 2: are going to tend to not do the thing, not
29:53
Speaker 2: to mention if it's come complicated or involves like too
29:56
Speaker 2: much minutia or whatever.
29:58
Speaker 4: It's important for the bear of entry.
30:00
Speaker 2: For something as critical as reporting a crime or someone
30:04
Speaker 2: in danger to be as low as possible.
30:08
Speaker 1: Yeah, and this, this conundrum is part of the reason
30:13
Speaker 1: why there are different versions of good Samaritan laws around
30:17
Speaker 1: the world. In some places they have a thing called
30:21
Speaker 1: the duty to rescue law, which says that you are
30:25
Speaker 1: legally required to try to help someone. It's tough to enforce.
30:30
Speaker 4: Do we have that here?
30:31
Speaker 2: Is that a thing? I've always wondered about that because
30:33
Speaker 2: it does seem like it would require a lot of
30:36
Speaker 2: legwork to prove that.
30:38
Speaker 1: Yeah, we have, we have good Samaritan here. Mexico has
30:43
Speaker 1: duty to rescue, as does a lot of Western Europe.
30:47
Speaker 4: But it's a lot of pressure, is what that is.
30:49
Speaker 2: I mean, I'm not saying you shouldn't act, but I
30:51
Speaker 2: almost wonder if that would be like paralyzing to some people.
30:54
Speaker 1: Oh sure, yeah, especially if you are you know, you're
30:58
Speaker 1: not trained up in things like CPR or the I
31:02
Speaker 1: almost called the Heimlich maneuver. I almost called it the
31:05
Speaker 1: van Helsing maneuver. That's a very different approach to.
31:07
Speaker 4: The Jean Claud van dam maneuver. Right, right, this, so this.
31:12
Speaker 1: Idea makes sense before, Like you were saying, no before
31:15
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty eight, the only way to reach the police
31:17
Speaker 1: was by dialing zero, hitting the operator in the switchboard
31:21
Speaker 1: and hoping they were not too busy to transfer your call.
31:26
Speaker 4: Yeah, exactly.
31:27
Speaker 2: There was a lot of opportunity for communication breakdown. But
31:31
Speaker 2: in nineteen sixty seven, the President's Commission on Law Enforcement
31:34
Speaker 2: and Administrative Justice recommended creating one single number that could
31:40
Speaker 2: be used across the entire nation for reporting these kinds
31:43
Speaker 2: of emergencies.
31:45
Speaker 1: Yeah, and this was all based on the public outcry
31:48
Speaker 1: on the Genovies case. So the FCC won't let me
31:52
Speaker 1: be or let me be met.
31:53
Speaker 4: Kidding, The f went to something something something on MTV.
32:00
Speaker 1: They went to AT and T, private company obviously super
32:04
Speaker 1: in bed with the government, And in November of nineteen
32:08
Speaker 1: sixty seven, the FCC and AT and T say, all right,
32:12
Speaker 1: we've got to figure out a number that people can
32:15
Speaker 1: call whenever there's a crisis. AT and T, not the
32:18
Speaker 1: US government, not Uncle Sam. AT and T chose the
32:21
Speaker 1: actual number, and they went with nine one one because
32:25
Speaker 1: it was easy to memorize and they were still working
32:28
Speaker 1: with rotary phones.
32:29
Speaker 4: That's right.
32:30
Speaker 2: So I'm wondering, do they like focus group this? Do
32:32
Speaker 2: you think like, I mean, I understand what you're saying
32:35
Speaker 2: I'm just wondering, like, why not why not one? One?
32:39
Speaker 2: Why not twelve? Why not something that would require few?
32:42
Speaker 2: But maybe it's what we were saying too earlier. This
32:45
Speaker 2: is enough numbers where you couldn't do it by accidents.
32:48
Speaker 1: Yeah, they needed three.
32:51
Speaker 2: It makes sense because otherwise, if it was just one
32:53
Speaker 2: misdial and then all of a sudden you got you're
32:56
Speaker 2: getting flooded with with one two calls, you.
32:59
Speaker 1: Know, I mean yeah, dialing nine nine nine on a
33:02
Speaker 1: rotary phone physically takes longer, and putting one as the
33:06
Speaker 1: second digit in this pattern works pretty well with spatially, Yeah,
33:11
Speaker 1: with the telephonic systems at the time, so they can
33:14
Speaker 1: they can use that pattern that one is the second
33:18
Speaker 1: digit to help prioritize things. But look, still Bell systems
33:24
Speaker 1: while a monopoly in AT and T, while definitely still
33:27
Speaker 1: a monopoly, they don't run everything. So independent phone companies
33:31
Speaker 1: are not in the emergency telephone plan.
33:35
Speaker 4: What's an independent phone company?
33:37
Speaker 1: Is not really a thing anymore, exactly.
33:39
Speaker 4: I mean, I'm half joking, but it really is something.
33:42
Speaker 2: Even in our lifetime, I don't know that we had
33:45
Speaker 2: you know, mom and pop phone companies anymore, just mo Bell, Uh.
33:50
Speaker 1: So some people chose to get ahead of the game.
33:54
Speaker 1: We've got to give the flowers to Alabama. The ATC
33:58
Speaker 1: Alabama Telephone Company said, all right, we're gonna do this,
34:02
Speaker 1: but we're gonna We're not gonna wait for the big dogs.
34:05
Speaker 1: We're going to go to Haleyville, Alabama. That's gonna be
34:09
Speaker 1: our location for our nine to one one service. So
34:13
Speaker 1: the first US emergency call service is made in Alabama.
34:17
Speaker 1: It's a nine to one one service, and the first
34:20
Speaker 1: call is made in nineteen sixty eight by the then
34:24
Speaker 1: Speaker of the House rank and fit by the names,
34:30
Speaker 1: and then it's a test call. It's an ahoy HOI.
34:34
Speaker 4: I was gonna say today, say AHIHI.
34:36
Speaker 1: To US Rep. Tom Bevel. And then later same year
34:41
Speaker 1: it's March first, nineteen sixty eight. AT and T gets
34:45
Speaker 1: their system rolled out partially in Huntington, Alabama.
34:51
Speaker 4: That's right.
34:51
Speaker 2: In nineteen seventy three, the White House's Office of Telecommunication
34:54
Speaker 2: issued a national statement that supported the use of nine
34:58
Speaker 2: one one and pushed to take any and further by
35:00
Speaker 2: establishing a Federal Information Center to kind of help with
35:04
Speaker 2: the logistics of all of it, to assist government agencies
35:07
Speaker 2: and rolling the system out nationally.
35:10
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, and again we see some statements, but are
35:16
Speaker 1: those statements going to lead to action or is it
35:19
Speaker 1: sound and fury signify nothing. A full national rollout of
35:23
Speaker 1: nine to one one would take years and years, and
35:27
Speaker 1: it's still to our earlier point, unevenly distributed for much
35:31
Speaker 1: of this time. The city of Chicago had nine to
35:34
Speaker 1: one one service as early as nineteen seventy six, but
35:39
Speaker 1: the Illinois Commerce Commission didn't let this get to the
35:44
Speaker 1: suburbs of Chicago until nineteen eighty one.
35:48
Speaker 4: We're holding back in the offering nine to one one
35:51
Speaker 4: to her customers. That's crazy, That is a little bit nutting.
36:01
Speaker 2: By nineteen seventy nine, we had a pretty big boom time,
36:06
Speaker 2: with twenty six percent of the US population having access
36:10
Speaker 2: to nine one one. This continued exponentially over the course
36:14
Speaker 2: of the next decade or so, as it increased to
36:17
Speaker 2: fifty percent by nineteen eighty seven, and then ninety three
36:20
Speaker 2: percent by the year two thousand. What's that extra eight
36:24
Speaker 2: percent there or seven ten percent there in two thousand.
36:28
Speaker 4: That didn't have nine one one in two thousand.
36:31
Speaker 1: Right, right? And then people are still working to improve
36:36
Speaker 1: the system. It is very rural thing.
36:38
Speaker 4: It has to be just rural, right, I mean, that's
36:41
Speaker 4: definitely often.
36:42
Speaker 1: And so as of March of twenty twenty two, we're
36:46
Speaker 1: happy to report ninety eight point nine percent of the
36:49
Speaker 1: US population had access.
36:51
Speaker 4: But where's that one point one percent?
36:53
Speaker 2: I got to know who these one point one percent
36:55
Speaker 2: of the population are that don't have access to nine
36:57
Speaker 2: one one?
36:57
Speaker 1: And are they Okay, we will never know, guess not.
37:01
Speaker 1: That's a terrible thing.
37:02
Speaker 4: They're truly the forgotten one point.
37:05
Speaker 1: Someone in the hinterlands of Alaska. Maybe yeah, they make
37:08
Speaker 1: a very remote area.
37:10
Speaker 4: That has to be it.
37:11
Speaker 1: And there are still vast swaths of the interior of
37:14
Speaker 1: the United States that don't have, you know, cell coverage,
37:17
Speaker 1: so that could explain part of it. Look, the modern
37:21
Speaker 1: system is a marvel of engineering and coordination. There is
37:25
Speaker 1: no question it saved millions of lives. The technology is
37:29
Speaker 1: continuing to evolve. We see all sorts of new innovations,
37:33
Speaker 1: like the ability to just text nine to one one
37:36
Speaker 1: from your cell phone, Like have you ever done that?
37:39
Speaker 1: Have you ever? If you have an iPhone? You may
37:43
Speaker 1: have accidentally but the wrong urgency and it's like, do
37:46
Speaker 1: you want to make an emergency co ops.
37:48
Speaker 2: I actually once said by but did that? And then
37:51
Speaker 2: I butt said yes, And then I got a call
37:54
Speaker 2: from from emergency services, and I think I answered the
37:56
Speaker 2: phone and just apologize. But I did look up, like
37:59
Speaker 2: where in the US do people not have access to
38:02
Speaker 2: nine one one? And of course what comes up right
38:04
Speaker 2: away is parts of Alaska or again Washington State, Idaho, Wyoming,
38:08
Speaker 2: North and South Dakota or Montana. But despite that, you
38:13
Speaker 2: did mention that some of these places are also places
38:15
Speaker 2: that are gonna have spotty cell signal. It's a little
38:18
Speaker 2: bit of a different game because of what you're talking about,
38:20
Speaker 2: the access through cell carriers to reach to reach emergency
38:24
Speaker 2: services despite where you are physically.
38:28
Speaker 1: Yeah, so the system continues to be improved upon. We
38:33
Speaker 1: hope you never have to call the numbers. We hope
38:35
Speaker 1: you do remember the numbers in your neck of the
38:38
Speaker 1: Global Woods.
38:38
Speaker 4: What's the order for nine to one one?
38:41
Speaker 1: I think it starts with a two. We want to
38:44
Speaker 1: take a moment to thank all the first responders and
38:47
Speaker 1: nine to one one operators. Your service is often unsung.
38:52
Speaker 1: We know that, like we have a loose abstract idea
38:58
Speaker 1: of how incredible least stressful this could be uh. And
39:02
Speaker 1: if you have ever worked in you know, even even
39:06
Speaker 1: a call center, right, a non emergency call center, you
39:10
Speaker 1: know that it can be a tremendously stressful job.
39:13
Speaker 2: And and on nine one one, much like on these
39:15
Speaker 2: call centers, they're operating from a set of protocols as well,
39:19
Speaker 2: and so they might sometimes not react the way you
39:22
Speaker 2: would like them to when you're under duress, because it
39:24
Speaker 2: is it is part of their mandate to go through
39:27
Speaker 2: this checklist of questions that might.
39:29
Speaker 4: Seem irrelevant, and maybe they are whatever, like whatever.
39:34
Speaker 2: That's right, But it's just they are just they are
39:37
Speaker 2: trained to do that, and they are being recorded and monitored,
39:40
Speaker 2: as we know when we have a big public crime
39:43
Speaker 2: and we hear those nine to one one tapes.
39:46
Speaker 4: So these people are under a lot of scrutiny.
39:48
Speaker 2: I'm not saying there aren't operators nine one one operators
39:51
Speaker 2: out there that don't do a great job. That's certainly
39:53
Speaker 2: we've seen plenty of cases of that with stuff they
39:55
Speaker 2: don't want you to know.
39:56
Speaker 1: But by and large, you're right, Ben, these people are
39:58
Speaker 1: doing God's work. Yeah, I agree with you there. We
40:01
Speaker 1: also want to end this episode. We're keeping it at
40:05
Speaker 1: one part with a couple of things. First off, thank
40:08
Speaker 1: you again to Norman McDonald who, almost a century ago
40:12
Speaker 1: out there in London decided something needed to be done
40:16
Speaker 1: about this problem. Writing and making your voice heard does
40:20
Speaker 1: make a difference. This guy made a huge difference. Something
40:23
Speaker 1: like this probably would have happened, but it happened the
40:28
Speaker 1: time it did because of this guy's strength of character.
40:32
Speaker 2: It's a good note for all of us to remember
40:36
Speaker 2: too that despite how things may feel sometimes, you know,
40:40
Speaker 2: government wise, you know overwhelming, like how can I possibly
40:44
Speaker 2: change anything? If you start small and like make a
40:47
Speaker 2: suggestion at your local level, you know, go to like
40:49
Speaker 2: a community you know, town hall or whatever it is,
40:52
Speaker 2: you know, organize around a local commissioner or whatever to
40:57
Speaker 2: get something done. There are plenty of success stories of
40:59
Speaker 2: things like that that oftentimes can spread outward to the bigger,
41:03
Speaker 2: greater picture, you know, of the country that you live in.
41:06
Speaker 4: So don't don't be despaired, y'all.
41:08
Speaker 1: The way I always enjoy it is this think global,
41:12
Speaker 1: act local, just because it rives.
41:15
Speaker 2: But you know, people also say, like think globally, shop
41:19
Speaker 2: locally or even I've seen people say meme locally. You know,
41:23
Speaker 2: how I follow who does Athens, Georgia based memes, and
41:26
Speaker 2: his tagline on his account is think globally, meme locally,
41:29
Speaker 2: which I think is delightful.
41:30
Speaker 1: So yeah, pee locally, poop globally whatever.
41:34
Speaker 4: Well that's or vice versa depending on the day.
41:37
Speaker 2: But Ben you you you found a handful of really fun,
41:41
Speaker 2: pretty lighthearted examples of nine to one one calls gone awry.
41:46
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, this is the thing we want to add
41:48
Speaker 1: on here, just so we have a bit of levity.
41:52
Speaker 1: After thinking all the first responders and emergency call operators,
41:57
Speaker 1: we want to share with you just a few examples
42:01
Speaker 1: of how cartoonishly people can have a different definition of emergency.
42:09
Speaker 1: This your butt dial story stands out because there was
42:13
Speaker 1: a situation in Ohio.
42:15
Speaker 2: Right yeah, burglar in Shelby County, Ohio was caught by
42:18
Speaker 2: police when he accidentally butt dialed nine to one one
42:20
Speaker 2: while breaking into a home with the intent of robbing it.
42:25
Speaker 4: Making matters worse when.
42:26
Speaker 2: The cops showed up, he hid in a closet and
42:29
Speaker 2: then you know, charge your phone, bro it went ding
42:32
Speaker 2: ding or put that on silent man, what a sloppy
42:35
Speaker 2: crook low battery alarm went off, which you know, I mean,
42:38
Speaker 2: come on.
42:39
Speaker 4: Man, it's twenty twenty four. Let's let's put our phones on.
42:42
Speaker 1: Silent, always have your photo on silence.
42:44
Speaker 4: It's just the right thing to do.
42:45
Speaker 1: Do not disturb as default, you know what I mean,
42:48
Speaker 1: text in advance. If someone calls me today, I assume
42:51
Speaker 1: it's an emergent.
42:52
Speaker 4: One has died.
42:53
Speaker 2: Yeah.
42:53
Speaker 1: Yeah, So we're getting some of this from readers digest.
42:57
Speaker 1: You can find some excellent threads across the internet from
43:02
Speaker 1: first responders and nine to one one operators themselves. But
43:06
Speaker 1: we're again, we're just sharing some of the lighthearted ones
43:10
Speaker 1: to the earlier drug example. All right, there's this guy
43:13
Speaker 1: in Lincoln, Nebraska who comes back to his house one
43:18
Speaker 1: day and he finds someone has robbed his house and
43:22
Speaker 1: they have insults upon injury, stolen his favorite hookah pipes.
43:28
Speaker 2: Yeah, and whilst you go ahead and laugh out there
43:31
Speaker 2: in ridiculous historian land. But people that are really into
43:34
Speaker 2: that stuff, No, those things can be very very valuable,
43:37
Speaker 2: very expensive, like a really expensive glassware or whatever. It's
43:40
Speaker 2: a whole niche kind of you know, market unto itself,
43:44
Speaker 2: and they may very well have been out one thousand
43:46
Speaker 2: dollars for the right kind of bomb.
43:48
Speaker 1: Yeah, and he clearly had an emotional attachment. So he
43:52
Speaker 1: calls nine to one one and the law the first responders,
43:57
Speaker 1: law enforcement shows up because it's a report of a burglary, right,
44:01
Speaker 1: it's their job to show up. And then when they
44:03
Speaker 1: get there, Nol, they find that he grows all smell. Yeah,
44:08
Speaker 1: he grows a lot of cannabis.
44:10
Speaker 2: A lot of pot plants not legal in Lincoln, Nebraska. Also,
44:14
Speaker 2: this was in the era where it wasn't really legal
44:17
Speaker 2: most anywhere. But yeah, he did end up kind of
44:20
Speaker 2: telling on himself. He must have been stoned when he
44:24
Speaker 2: made the call in the first place. Bong Ye, stoned
44:28
Speaker 2: and heartbroken. I bet he had a cute name for
44:30
Speaker 2: the hooka pipes.
44:31
Speaker 4: Too, probably bomb Bongie.
44:34
Speaker 1: Yeah we've got one. We've got another win from our
44:37
Speaker 1: own home state of Georgia.
44:39
Speaker 4: Yeah we do. And it's not pronounced Dacula as much
44:42
Speaker 4: as we'd like it to be.
44:44
Speaker 2: It's if you've ever driven around on I twenty in
44:46
Speaker 2: the Atlanta area, like going towards I believe it's on east,
44:50
Speaker 2: but you'll pass a place called Dacula. Counts Dacula, but
44:54
Speaker 2: it's Tekula, Georgia or Tequila perhaps it felt like Dracula.
44:58
Speaker 1: It sure is.
44:59
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's it's a spooky, spooky.
45:01
Speaker 2: Town, as evidenced by this tale of a woman contacting
45:04
Speaker 2: police when her Chevy van went missing.
45:06
Speaker 4: What could be spookier than that? At least it wasn't
45:08
Speaker 4: an odyssey, right Ben?
45:09
Speaker 1: Thank you?
45:10
Speaker 4: Yeah.
45:11
Speaker 2: Later that day, the woman called back to report that
45:14
Speaker 2: the vehicle had been found.
45:17
Speaker 4: Where was it found?
45:18
Speaker 1: Then?
45:18
Speaker 4: Where was the vehicle?
45:19
Speaker 1: It was in her yard. She just had a really
45:23
Speaker 1: atrucious yard. So apparently she or someone parked it in
45:28
Speaker 1: their yard behind tall weeds.
45:30
Speaker 2: Or maybe she just hadn't driven it in a while
45:32
Speaker 2: and the weeds literally grew up around it over the skin,
45:35
Speaker 2: you know, I mean sure, So she was probably stone too,
45:38
Speaker 2: and she made the call.
45:39
Speaker 1: It feels like there's a lot of story between the
45:42
Speaker 1: lines on that one. We'll hand on this. There's a
45:46
Speaker 1: guy who Okay, there is a known issue with some people,
45:50
Speaker 1: perhaps driven by loneliness, perhaps a mental situation, perhaps paranoia.
45:55
Speaker 1: There are people who are regulars calling nine to one
45:59
Speaker 1: one when there's not what nine to one one would
46:01
Speaker 1: consider an emergency, like not domestic abuse, it's just you know,
46:06
Speaker 1: someone's a lukie loo and they're consistently reporting things.
46:10
Speaker 2: That they think are suspicious, and there may be mental
46:13
Speaker 2: health issues at play here. So I would think that,
46:16
Speaker 2: you know, what I did look up in terms of,
46:19
Speaker 2: you know, when is it crossing the line to abuse
46:23
Speaker 2: or to misuse nine one one, And it is on
46:25
Speaker 2: a case by case basis, so I would imagine they
46:27
Speaker 2: would be able to be like, oh, poor old mister
46:29
Speaker 2: Wilson and he's calling again asking for a pack of smokes.
46:33
Speaker 4: He doesn't mean any harm.
46:34
Speaker 2: And after a certain point, if it really is clogging
46:37
Speaker 2: up the resource, then something probably has to be done.
46:39
Speaker 2: But the thing is, though, you also can't like block
46:42
Speaker 2: them from calling nine to one one because they could
46:46
Speaker 2: eventually have a genuine emergency. You know, you can't take
46:50
Speaker 2: away people's nine to one one privileges.
46:52
Speaker 1: And sometimes we see this happen in medical facilities as well.
46:57
Speaker 1: Somebody may just continually go to you are with no
47:02
Speaker 1: you know, discernible emergency medical situation. Right, Yeah, So this
47:07
Speaker 1: takes us to one example of this. A guy in Canada,
47:11
Speaker 1: in a town called Lundar made a bunch of calls
47:15
Speaker 1: to nine to one one and eventually, since we said
47:19
Speaker 1: it's a case by case basis, the operators say, okay, okay, Bud, listen,
47:26
Speaker 1: then you gotta stop calling. There are real emergencies, and
47:30
Speaker 1: every time that we are dealing with your frivolous stuff,
47:34
Speaker 1: we are risking the lives of other people. So if
47:37
Speaker 1: you call again, this is your last warning. If you
47:40
Speaker 1: call one more time, you are going to go to
47:44
Speaker 1: jail for exploiting this system. And then he said, well,
47:50
Speaker 1: if you're coming to get me, can you bring along
47:54
Speaker 1: some cigarettes? Well that's my real reason for calling. He
47:58
Speaker 1: called nine to one one the way people would call
48:01
Speaker 1: like a friend coming over, or like the way a
48:05
Speaker 1: drunk person would ask the Uber eats guy to bring
48:08
Speaker 1: some stuff back.
48:09
Speaker 4: Yeah that's.
48:11
Speaker 2: Oh man, poor guy, he's probably just lonely, didn't have
48:15
Speaker 2: anybody that would bring him a pack of smokes. I mean,
48:17
Speaker 2: I can you only imagine too that there are examples
48:19
Speaker 2: of people calling nine.
48:20
Speaker 4: One one as well, just to have their company, you.
48:23
Speaker 1: Know what I mean. Like the world can be a
48:25
Speaker 1: lonely place, Yes it can.
48:26
Speaker 4: Sorry, So we said we were going to end on
48:28
Speaker 4: an upnote, but here we are.
48:30
Speaker 2: It's true though, you know, hey, check on your folks,
48:33
Speaker 2: check check on your elderly.
48:35
Speaker 1: And here's our up. Here's our up note for this.
48:39
Speaker 1: We are a community and we're so glad you have
48:42
Speaker 1: joined us. You know, one thing I can say about podcasting,
48:47
Speaker 1: as imperfect and new a genre of media as it is,
48:51
Speaker 1: is that I think it does unite people, hopefully in
48:54
Speaker 1: a largely wholesome way.
48:57
Speaker 2: Would I would like to think largely wholesome. We keep it,
49:01
Speaker 2: keep it largely wholesome. Here on Ridiculous, Sister, they were
49:04
Speaker 2: at least medium wholesome.
49:06
Speaker 1: Pep Max, you had something on your mind.
49:08
Speaker 4: Yeah, I wanted to.
49:09
Speaker 3: Just leave with a funny story to uh end this episode.
49:14
Speaker 3: So one of my best friends of all time, her
49:15
Speaker 3: name's Chelsea. She was a emergency call dispatcher for a
49:19
Speaker 3: number of years, very stressful dub. She she eventually left
49:23
Speaker 3: it because she's just like, I can't do this weird
49:25
Speaker 3: hour and stuff like that. But throughout the time she
49:27
Speaker 3: would tell me some of the weirdest ones she got.
49:30
Speaker 3: And one one night, it was a call from a
49:33
Speaker 3: couple they had, you know, been doing some things in
49:35
Speaker 3: the bedroom and we're just trying to be very vague
49:38
Speaker 3: about what the problem was. My friend Chelsea's like, hey, ma'am,
49:41
Speaker 3: I really need to know what's wrong with your partner
49:43
Speaker 3: to figure out what it is, and say, well, we
49:45
Speaker 3: were trying some you know, I'm gonna try to get
49:47
Speaker 3: this a little cleaner.
49:48
Speaker 4: But let's just say something was stuck in his bill.
49:53
Speaker 1: But I think we got your drifts there. Yeah, cheeky,
49:58
Speaker 1: but I get it very chea.
50:00
Speaker 2: And then the next part of that story is the
50:02
Speaker 2: attending physician at the er, you know, looking at a
50:07
Speaker 2: X ray with like a lego.
50:09
Speaker 1: Oh god, why how has that become a tropech.
50:11
Speaker 4: Yes it is.
50:13
Speaker 3: Chelsea told me that they had to inject a good
50:15
Speaker 3: bit of muscle relaxers into.
50:17
Speaker 2: Him, could have given him some poppers. Namy, gosh, we
50:19
Speaker 2: said we were going to keep it PG.
50:20
Speaker 1: Well, as that's fine as long as we don't explain
50:23
Speaker 1: the poppers thing, So look it up on your own.
50:27
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for tuning in. Everybody, stay safe
50:30
Speaker 1: out there. And again, the biggest thing for us to
50:32
Speaker 1: end on with is we've got a lot of ridiculous
50:35
Speaker 1: historians in the audience today who are first responders or
50:39
Speaker 1: who do work with the nine to one one system
50:42
Speaker 1: or another emergency call system, maybe a mental health system,
50:46
Speaker 1: things like that. Thank you, so much for your service.
50:49
Speaker 1: And while we're thanking people, let's roll some credits. Thanks
50:52
Speaker 1: to our super producer, mister Max Williams.
50:56
Speaker 2: Indeed, thanks to Alex Williams who composed our theme, Chris
51:00
Speaker 2: for Hasiotis and Eve's Jeffcoat here and Spirit.
51:03
Speaker 1: Big big thanks to Gabe Lucier first of his name.
51:07
Speaker 1: I don't know if it's true, but I feel like
51:09
Speaker 1: saying this entirely likely. Yeah, let's see. Thanks to of course,
51:14
Speaker 1: our rude dudes over at Ridiculous Crime, Elizabeth Zarin and Dave.
51:19
Speaker 1: You can check out a couple of collaboration episodes we
51:22
Speaker 1: have with them. Oh thanks to our pals at Daily
51:25
Speaker 1: Zeitgeist who started doing video episode.
51:28
Speaker 2: Ah.
51:28
Speaker 4: Good for them. Maybe maybe we'll get there one day,
51:31
Speaker 4: maybe we'll join the big leagues.
51:33
Speaker 2: Huge thanks to the quiz Stara Jonathan Stricklan. He will
51:36
Speaker 2: be on before the end of the year, maybe definitely
51:40
Speaker 2: early on record.
51:41
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think we could say, but.
51:42
Speaker 2: I think we do a holiday Let's do a holiday
51:44
Speaker 2: episode with that old quizter.
51:47
Speaker 4: Also thanks to A. J. Bahamas Jacobs the Puzzler and.
51:51
Speaker 1: Thanks to doctor Rachel Big Spinach Lance. Thanks again to you, Noel.
51:58
Speaker 1: This was this was good? I think we kept it wholesome.
52:01
Speaker 1: We'd love to hear everybody's favorite whimsical nine to one
52:06
Speaker 1: one calls over on our Facebook page, Ridiculous Historians.
52:11
Speaker 4: That's right, and we'll see you next time, folks.
52:20
Speaker 2: For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
52:24
Speaker 2: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.