Speaker 1: You're listening to Part Time Genius, the production of Kaleidoscope
Speaker 1: and iHeartRadio. Guess what?
Speaker 2: Well, what's that Mango?
Speaker 1: So? I was giving this old piece in Popular Mechanics
Speaker 1: this week, and this one line caught my eye. Did
Speaker 1: you know that the vehicle from Ghostbusters, the original ectomobile,
Speaker 1: is actually a hearse?
Speaker 2: You know? One thing I feel like I do know
Speaker 2: is we've talked a lot about Ghostbusters on this show recently.
Speaker 1: Have you noticed that I have?
Speaker 2: Anyway? I guess I didn't really think about it, but
Speaker 2: that does make sense. It's got such a weird shape
Speaker 2: to the car.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the director sort of souped it up. And apparently
Speaker 1: the original design for the Ghostbuster's car was black with
Speaker 1: purple streaks across the doors, and then they painted out
Speaker 1: white and added some other modifications. But the thing that's
Speaker 1: interesting to me is that the car isn't just a hearse.
Speaker 1: The model's actually called a combination car. Because hearses from
Speaker 1: the nineteen fifties weren't just hearses. They also worked as ambulances.
Speaker 1: According to Popular Mechanics quote, hearses from funeral homes pulled
Speaker 1: double duty, and the funeral home employees didn't have much
Speaker 1: in the way of instruction beyond drive fast because the
Speaker 1: EMPT as a concept was still a few years off.
Speaker 2: So why didn't people just call nine one one? And
Speaker 2: we're talking about the nineteen fifties, right.
Speaker 1: I guess nine only one wasn't a national thing yet,
Speaker 1: and ambulances and EMPT services hadn't really been formalized either.
Speaker 1: That really starts in the mid to late sixties. So
Speaker 1: the funeral homes already have these cars that can carry
Speaker 1: people laying down. Funeral directors are just up at all hours,
Speaker 1: and for them it's the way to make extra money. Plus,
Speaker 1: from a more cynical perspective, if a patient doesn't make it,
Speaker 1: you've gotten an easy referral. According to the Journal, this
Speaker 1: paper from Ontario, Canada quote these ambulances not only took
Speaker 1: the injury to the hospital, they transported patients to and
Speaker 1: from nursing homes and even gave newborn babies and their
Speaker 1: mothers a lift home. The equipment was often sparse, a stretcher,
Speaker 1: a blanket, a first aid kit, and of course, in
Speaker 1: earlier iteration, it points out they'd have a bottle of
Speaker 1: whiskey to numb the pain. I mean, I can't imagine,
Speaker 1: and I don't want to think about this sort of thing,
Speaker 1: but like, imagine your granddad falling down some stairs or
Speaker 1: something like that.
Speaker 2: The idea of calling a funeral home to help with
Speaker 2: this problem just feels so morbid.
Speaker 1: You know, I know which God is wondering when did
Speaker 1: emergency hotlines and nine on one change all of that?
Speaker 1: So that's what we're talking about this episode. Let's dive in.
Speaker 2: Hey, their podcast listeners, welcome back to Part Time Genius.
Speaker 2: I'm Will Pearson and as always I'm joining with my
Speaker 2: good friend Mango, and sitting somewhere behind that big booth
Speaker 2: is our pal Dylan. He's got a bottle of Emergency
Speaker 2: nine sauce and see SEMs to be pouring it on
Speaker 2: everything he's eating back once he got back. If I
Speaker 2: were doing that, I would be sweating. He's I don't
Speaker 2: see one drout of sweat on the guy, but he's
Speaker 2: got I mean, it looks like he's got a burrito.
Speaker 3: A hot dog.
Speaker 2: I think that's a cobb salad bart. Mango, I spot
Speaker 2: a banana, but what are you doing?
Speaker 1: I'm so glad he also has a big jug of
Speaker 1: milk back there to calm it all down, or else
Speaker 1: we'd have to call nine one one. But speaking of
Speaker 1: nine one one, which translates his emergency to us these days,
Speaker 1: why don't you give us a rundown on how that
Speaker 1: number came to be.
Speaker 2: Well, as you said at the top of the show, here,
Speaker 2: nine one one is a relatively modern thing nationally ethic.
Speaker 2: That was the thing that surprised me most as we
Speaker 2: started looking into it. But it actually wasn't until nineteen
Speaker 2: sixty seven that the President's Commission on Law Enforcement and
Speaker 2: Administration of Justice recommended that quote, a single number should
Speaker 2: be established, and this would be nationwide. It would be
Speaker 2: for reporting any emergency situation.
Speaker 1: So what happened before that, I mean other than calling up,
Speaker 1: like you know, your local funeral director with right, everyone
Speaker 1: obviously has on speed dial.
Speaker 3: That's exactly right.
Speaker 2: Well, there used to be different numbers for different kinds
Speaker 2: of emergencies, and we will get to that. But back
Speaker 2: in nineteen sixty seven, the FCC met with the American
Speaker 2: Telephone and Telegraph Company we know them today as AT
Speaker 2: and T. Actually, that was another thing I learned. I
Speaker 2: didn't know that that's what that had stood for. But
Speaker 2: to find a means of establishing a universal emergency number
Speaker 2: that could be implemented super quickly. So in nineteen sixty eight,
Speaker 2: AT and T announced that it would establish the digits
Speaker 2: nine to one one as the emergency code throughout the
Speaker 2: United States. But weirdly, it wasn't until the Public Safety
Speaker 2: Act of nineteen ninety nine MANGO nineteen ninety nine. We
Speaker 2: were in college at the time that nine to one
Speaker 2: one was officially established as the nation's emergency calling number.
Speaker 1: That is insane that it took that long.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was actually Bill Clinton who signed the law
Speaker 2: ensuring that the FCC controlled nine one one and that
Speaker 2: it had a budget to oversee the number, which is
Speaker 2: when it became officially the law of the land.
Speaker 1: But people were calling nine one one for decades before that, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So the first nine one one call actually took
Speaker 2: place in my home state in Haleyville, Alabama. And this
Speaker 2: was in nineteen sixty eight, and it's still celebrated today.
Speaker 2: And do I mean celebrating, you know, have all sorts
Speaker 2: of weird things. You know, We've got that the big
Speaker 2: statue to the Bowl weavil and enterprise out and we
Speaker 2: love celebrating our super weird things there. But there's a
Speaker 2: sign there that says Haileyville where nine one one began,
Speaker 2: which is such a weird thing. But there are also
Speaker 2: banners hanging from street lights that have the town seal
Speaker 2: on it that you know, shows this red phone receiver
Speaker 2: and the words home of nine one one. Again, it
Speaker 2: just feels like a really weird message to send. But also,
Speaker 2: there's literally a nine one one festival in Haleyville every June,
Speaker 2: So I don't know if you've booked your tickets yet.
Speaker 3: I haven't.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm not sure that the Home of nine
Speaker 1: one one is really that big a draw for me,
Speaker 1: and it feels weird to want to go to somewhere
Speaker 1: where they have so many emergencies. But I am curious
Speaker 1: about this festival. How do you celebrate a phone number?
Speaker 2: Well, if you think about it, there are some things
Speaker 2: to celebrate, Like really, it's a festival to celebrate first responders,
Speaker 2: so that's pretty great. They obviously work super hard save
Speaker 2: a lot of lives. There's a parade, some first responder awards. Also,
Speaker 2: you know, given where it is, there's a tractor show,
Speaker 2: so that's the fun part too. And then obviously there's
Speaker 2: got to be a cornhole tournament to sort of round
Speaker 2: things out.
Speaker 1: You know, that sounds perfect, but the history.
Speaker 2: Is pretty interesting. So back in the nineteen sixties, there
Speaker 2: were all these regional telephone companies. So when AT and
Speaker 2: T and the FCC decided that three numbers to use
Speaker 2: would be nine to one pint one, the president of
Speaker 2: the Alabama Telephone Company, his name was Bob Gallagher, read
Speaker 2: about the decision and was upset that independent carriers were
Speaker 2: left out of the conversation. So he basically rushed to
Speaker 2: establish a nine to one to one system as fast
Speaker 2: as possible. He wanted to beat AT and T to
Speaker 2: the punch, and it took less than a week to
Speaker 2: set up, and on February sixteenth, nineteen sixty eight, the
Speaker 2: red emergency phone in Haleyville rang for the first time.
Speaker 1: I love that there's actually like a red phone there.
Speaker 1: It's amazing.
Speaker 2: It's literally on the town seal and all those banners,
Speaker 2: and it's also it's weird to me, like, before looking
Speaker 2: into all of this, I actually did not know that
Speaker 2: this all started in my home state.
Speaker 1: That's wonderful. Well, what number would you call if you
Speaker 1: had an emergency? Like one year before that, in nineteen
Speaker 1: sixty six.
Speaker 2: Well up until that point, people would just dial zero
Speaker 2: and then they would tell the operators. Sometimes we forget
Speaker 2: about that, right, the existence of operators, And you can
Speaker 2: imagine this was a pretty stressful situation. So the telephone
Speaker 2: company operators weren't necessarily trained on these emergency services. But
Speaker 2: phone lines had been the go to for reporting emergencies
Speaker 2: since the early nineteen hundred, So way back, the founders
Speaker 2: of the communications giant Ericson actually developed a portable phone
Speaker 2: handset and this crank that could be hooked to these
Speaker 2: like bare phone wires, and you'd actually place these two
Speaker 2: metal hooks inside it over these telephone wires to form
Speaker 2: the connection and then crank the handbox to create a
Speaker 2: signal that would hopefully be answered by someone on the line.
Speaker 2: This seems like a lot to figure out in these
Speaker 2: emergency situations.
Speaker 1: It's insane. So like if there was like a hot
Speaker 1: air balloon crash, or a guy with a handlebar mustache
Speaker 1: riding too fast in his unicycle, this is the contraction
Speaker 1: you'd have to use.
Speaker 2: That's exactly, and those were two of the most common
Speaker 2: injuries and emergencies. But it turns out people use the
Speaker 2: crank and hook thing for some pretty important things, Like
Speaker 2: way back in nineteen oh seven, somebody used one to
Speaker 2: report a train robbery and it actually contributed to the
Speaker 2: arrest of the outlaws.
Speaker 1: That's incredible.
Speaker 2: And here's actually, it's just so fun to read about
Speaker 2: some of these old ones. Here's one more old time nuggeting.
Speaker 2: Part of the reason we actually have some early emergency
Speaker 2: regulations is because of the Titanic. So basically, when people
Speaker 2: on the ship realized that were in trouble, the Titanic
Speaker 2: radio operator signaled for help. And it turns out there
Speaker 2: was one ship close by that was capable of offering aid,
Speaker 2: but the operator was off duty and the signal was
Speaker 2: never actually received, which is obviously a tragic situation. So
Speaker 2: in response, Congress passed the Radio Act of nineteen twelve,
Speaker 2: requiring all seagoing vessels to have a licensed radio operator
Speaker 2: on duty at all times. And this was to continuously
Speaker 2: monitor these distress frequencies. And that's what kickstarted the relationship
Speaker 2: between emergency communications and governance.
Speaker 1: It's interesting that that's one of the legacies of the Titanic.
Speaker 1: You know, I never would have guessed that, but I
Speaker 1: guess it kind of makes sense that it takes a
Speaker 1: big tragedy to spur some big change like that. Like
Speaker 1: in the UK, instead of nine one one, they have
Speaker 1: nine to ninety nine. And it's actually the world's oldest
Speaker 1: emergency phone service. It dates back to nineteen thirty five.
Speaker 1: But again it comes about because of a tragedy. There
Speaker 1: was a deadly fire in London in on Wimpole Street
Speaker 1: and five women ended up dying. The neighbors did try
Speaker 1: to help. They all dialed zero for the switchboard, but
Speaker 1: it was jammed with so many calls that they couldn't
Speaker 1: alert anyone of the fire.
Speaker 2: And so I'm curious, So how did they settle on
Speaker 2: those numbers nine to nine to nine.
Speaker 1: The General Post Office, which ran the telephone network, proposed
Speaker 1: a three digit number that could trigger a special signal
Speaker 1: and a flashing light at the exchange and then the
Speaker 1: operators could divert their attention and you know, get these
Speaker 1: priority calls. But they just had to pick three numbers.
Speaker 1: People thought an end number was a good choice, so
Speaker 1: you know, you could find it easily if you're reaching
Speaker 1: for your phone in the dark or in thick smoke.
Speaker 1: So like one one one was rejected because it could
Speaker 1: be triggered by faulty equipment or rubbing telephone lines together.
Speaker 1: I guess two two two was already taken apparently connected
Speaker 1: to the abbey, and zero zero zero didn't make any
Speaker 1: sense because the first zero would already take you straight
Speaker 1: to the operator. So they went with nine nine to nine,
Speaker 1: and on June thirtieth, nineteen thirty seven, the Capitol's new
Speaker 1: emergency telephone line was unveiled, and a week later, on
Speaker 1: July seventh, nineteen thirty seven, the press reported at the
Speaker 1: first arrest after a nine nine nine call, there was
Speaker 1: a guy, John Stanley Beard. He was woken up in
Speaker 1: the early hours of the morning by a noise underneath
Speaker 1: his bedroom window, and when he looked outside, he saw
Speaker 1: a single foot, a man's foot out there, and so
Speaker 1: his wife down nine nine nine. In less than five minutes,
Speaker 1: this burglar was arrested five minutes.
Speaker 2: That's actually pretty amazing given everything. But so nine nine
Speaker 2: nine pretty much worked immediately.
Speaker 1: Uh, well, it didn't work perfectly. Of the about one thousand,
Speaker 1: three hundred calls made that first week, ninety one were
Speaker 1: prank calls.
Speaker 2: Oh gosh, I mean, it feels so stupid but also
Speaker 2: so human that as soon as the country gets this
Speaker 2: emergency number, people would of course start making crank calls.
Speaker 1: Yeah, especially after this very sober notice in the evening
Speaker 1: News advised the public how to use nine nine to nine.
Speaker 1: It reads, quote only dial nine ninety nine if the
Speaker 1: matter is urgent. If, for instance, the man in the
Speaker 1: flat next to yours is murdering his wife, or you
Speaker 1: have seen a heavily masked cat burglar peering around the
Speaker 1: stackpipe of the local bank building. If you've merely lost
Speaker 1: a little towser or Lori has come to rest in
Speaker 1: your front garden, just call up the local police end quotes, right.
Speaker 1: I love the idea that someone putting their truck a
Speaker 1: little too close to you, know, your azaleas is something
Speaker 1: you should call nine one one about.
Speaker 2: I'm pretty sure I told you this before. But my grandmother,
Speaker 2: of course, Mamma, she would if we'd end up in
Speaker 2: a traffic jam. Every once in a while, she would
Speaker 2: want to pick up the phone and call nine one one,
Speaker 2: and we'd have to stop her from doing that, just
Speaker 2: to find out why there was a traffic jam. But
Speaker 2: I mean, I guess they were just worried that the
Speaker 2: emergency number would turn into this sort of like a
Speaker 2: complaint line for cranky citizens.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I guess that's fair. The other thing
Speaker 1: about the line of that time is that the early
Speaker 1: technology wasn't perfect, so when a call came in, operators
Speaker 1: were alerted by this like big flashing red light and
Speaker 1: a claxon, which is one of those like a wuga sirens.
Speaker 1: So if you can imagine multiple calls coming in at once,
Speaker 1: it's kind of nuts. A nineteen fifty one article in
Speaker 1: the Post Office Telecommunications Journal described nine nine nine's early days. Quote,
Speaker 1: when the raucous buzzer sounded in the quiet discipline switch rooms,
Speaker 1: a few of the girls found the situation too much
Speaker 1: for them and had to be carried out.
Speaker 2: That sounds pretty awful, actually, but actually there are a
Speaker 2: whole bunch of awugas and flashing lights going on over there.
Speaker 2: I don't know if our listeners can hear that, which
Speaker 2: I think Dylan is using to tell us it is
Speaker 2: time to throw to commercials. So stay right there. We'll
Speaker 2: be back with more Part Time Genius after the break.
Speaker 2: Welcome back to Part Time Genius, where we're talking nine
Speaker 2: to one to one and the various emergency lines around
Speaker 2: the world. All right, megol let's jump over to Europe
Speaker 2: and look at their emergency number, one one one two.
Speaker 2: How did that come into existence?
Speaker 1: So the idea for one one two started in the
Speaker 1: early nineteen nineties. In July nineteen ninety one, the EU
Speaker 1: decided that all member states would introduce a common emergency number,
Speaker 1: but it wasn't until two thousand and two that one
Speaker 1: one two became mandatory for all EU member states, And
Speaker 1: the number does work in some other places, like Australia
Speaker 1: uses a triple zero for their emergency number, although you
Speaker 1: can also use one one two if you're calling from
Speaker 1: a mobile phone.
Speaker 2: Actually, that was one of the things I thought was
Speaker 2: most interesting in the research of all of this, Like
Speaker 2: if you're abroad and you dial your home country's emergency number,
Speaker 2: often it'll just forward to whatever country you're in. Like,
Speaker 2: if you dial one one two here in the States,
Speaker 2: it fords to nine one one.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I actually remember when I was on study abroad,
Speaker 1: this kid on my trip was feeling sick from something
Speaker 1: he'd eaten, and he was like super super dramatic and
Speaker 1: he was like crawling on the floor to the phone
Speaker 1: and trying to dial nine one one. But you know
Speaker 1: it's a landline and then it doesn't go anywhere, So,
Speaker 1: you know, it did make me think, like, I don't
Speaker 1: know what you're supposed to do in emergency situations in
Speaker 1: other countries, but I guess on cell phones have kind
Speaker 1: of solved for that. Yeah, which is a great thing.
Speaker 2: It is definitely a good thing. And today we have
Speaker 2: what's called Enhance nine one one, which is what ninety
Speaker 2: three percent of counties with nine to one one coverage have,
Speaker 2: So basically nine one one systems have been upgraded to
Speaker 2: accommodate for wireless calls and they share the caller's location
Speaker 2: by iding the closest cell tower to the caller. I'm
Speaker 2: sure you've heard about this as well.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I feel like you hear a lot about that
Speaker 1: on like NCIS type shows, or like in Cereal where
Speaker 1: they're trying to triangulate a caller's location from cell phone towers.
Speaker 1: But that feels like technology that's been around for a while.
Speaker 2: That's true, but nine one one is always evolving. Like
Speaker 2: right now, dispatch operators are transitioning to what's called Next
Speaker 2: Generation nine one one or NG nine one one, which
Speaker 2: will allow us to send things like texts and pictures
Speaker 2: to our nine one providers.
Speaker 1: Which is great, but I imagine with all the prank pictures
Speaker 1: that might come to it's probably another opportunity for emergency
Speaker 1: dispatches to remind nine one one users to use it appropriately.
Speaker 2: Well, none of our listeners would ever do that. But
Speaker 2: here's another interesting thing that I learned in my research,
Speaker 2: and again it's an evolution because of a tragedy. But
Speaker 2: you know, if you're in an office, you often have
Speaker 2: to dial nine to reach an outside line, right yeah.
Speaker 1: And sometimes in hotels too, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly, And that's not the case if you're dialing
Speaker 2: nine one one. So today, if you just dial nine
Speaker 2: one one, it'll connect you. And that's because of this case.
Speaker 2: In twenty thirteen, there was a woman named Carrie Hunt.
Speaker 2: She was attacked and killed by her estranged husband in Marshall, Texas.
Speaker 2: And this happened in a hotel room, and so Carrie's
Speaker 2: nine year old daughter was in the room and trying
Speaker 2: to call nine one one on the hotel phone. I mean,
Speaker 2: just such a tragic situation. But she dialed nine one
Speaker 2: one four times during the attack, but tragically none of
Speaker 2: those calls went through.
Speaker 1: That is so awful.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So ever since then, Carrie's father, a man named
Speaker 2: Hank Hunt, has worked tirelessly with the FCC and Congress
Speaker 2: to change the law so that nine is no longer
Speaker 2: needed for nine one one calls from these multi line
Speaker 2: systems like hotel phones, business phones, things like that. And
Speaker 2: all these efforts paid off in twenty eighteen when Carrie's
Speaker 2: law actually became this officially adopted law across the states.
Speaker 1: That you know that that's really sad, but also seems
Speaker 1: so obvious, right, Like, I guess we just don't think
Speaker 1: of these things until we have to.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And because arguably the multi line phone system is
Speaker 2: a great technological advancement, but it didn't integrate naturally with
Speaker 2: the nine one one system. And it's kind of the
Speaker 2: same things with like smartphones and watches, but but really
Speaker 2: more in the opposite direction. Like they've almost made calling
Speaker 2: nine one one too easy.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I think it's funny that every time I shut
Speaker 1: my phone off, it offers me the option to call
Speaker 1: emergency services, which you know is obviously a good thing,
Speaker 1: but sometimes it does feel like my phone wants me
Speaker 1: to call nine one one.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, like, like you said, built in nine
Speaker 2: one one features and smartphones are a net positive, but
Speaker 2: they've definitely led to an increase in the accidental nine
Speaker 2: one one calls. For instance, in India, for some reason,
Speaker 2: if you or your kid or your pocket presses the
Speaker 2: side button three times, your phone will dial one one two.
Speaker 1: That's crazy. I go to India like every other year,
Speaker 1: and I had no idea about this.
Speaker 2: Glad that you haven't accidentally called nine or one one two,
Speaker 2: I guess in that case. You know, in some smart
Speaker 2: watches now include fall detection, so if your watch thinks
Speaker 2: you fall in and can't get up, it will call
Speaker 2: nine one one, which is a great safety feature.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's so smart. It's like such a boon for
Speaker 1: people like us who might be worried about you know,
Speaker 1: your parents or your in laws.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but you can also imagine how it might cause
Speaker 2: some problems too, Like at one Idaho ski resort this
Speaker 2: past winter, this place called Schweitz Or Mountain, the sheriff's
Speaker 2: office saw this dramatic increase in unwanted nine to one
Speaker 2: one calls and people that were skiing and snowboarding and
Speaker 2: they were just wiping out, which was triggering all this
Speaker 2: fall detection on smart watches and it just kept calling
Speaker 2: nine one one.
Speaker 1: That's incredible. They just have to stay on the bunny hill.
Speaker 1: If you're wearing a smart.
Speaker 2: Watch, that's right. But sometimes it doesn't even take a
Speaker 2: fall to trigger this automatic emergency call. So there's this
Speaker 2: Reddit post from a person in Europe who Samsung Galaxy
Speaker 2: dialed one one two when they took it off, and
Speaker 2: this is what it said. Quote, I took my watch
Speaker 2: off and threw it on my bed because I went
Speaker 2: to take a shower. Well, my watch interpreted that is falling.
Speaker 2: One one two called me like four times, and when
Speaker 2: I heard the fourth call, I ran out to answer
Speaker 2: the phone.
Speaker 1: That's crazy, and I feel like running out all soapy
Speaker 1: with shampoo and your eyes might actually cause a spill
Speaker 1: that makes you need to call nine one one. But
Speaker 1: to your point, obviously, unintentional calls aren't a great thing,
Speaker 1: especially since there's a nationwide shortage of nine to one
Speaker 1: one dispatches right now.
Speaker 2: Oh that's interesting. Why do you think there's a shortage.
Speaker 1: So a lot of reasons, you know, burnout from the pandemic,
Speaker 1: long shifts, overnight shifts, low pay, high stress, all of
Speaker 1: that is contributing. But the volume of calls is also insane.
Speaker 1: I mean, this number is all over the place online,
Speaker 1: but supposedly America's nine to one one system receives an
Speaker 1: average of two hundred and forty million calls annually, or
Speaker 1: an average of over twelve hundred calls per minute.
Speaker 2: Oh wow, that is insane.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I hadn't even processed how hard the job is. Like,
Speaker 1: I actually read this memoir. It's called Answering nine to
Speaker 1: one one by Carolyn Bourou. I think her name's pronounced,
Speaker 1: But she's talking about how people always want to hear
Speaker 1: the types of calls she answers at parties, and it
Speaker 1: just makes her pause every time because like, actually, the
Speaker 1: most interesting calls, she says, are the saddest ones. So
Speaker 1: this is what she writes. They are the stories where
Speaker 1: mothers and fathers fail their children. They are the stories
Speaker 1: where friends and lovers do awful things to each other
Speaker 1: because of drugs or alcohol or worse, for no real
Speaker 1: reason at all. Where they are the fascinating ways that
Speaker 1: some people lose their grip on reality. Interesting, yeah, but
Speaker 1: not amusing. And she talks about trying to hold it
Speaker 1: together on a call where this girl has called because
Speaker 1: her mom has tried to commit suicide, and how she
Speaker 1: has to ask like where the gun is and what
Speaker 1: type of gun she used, and if the mom is
Speaker 1: still alive, And you know, those calls just have to
Speaker 1: be devastating, and you know, as an operator you kind
Speaker 1: of have to hold it together until after the shift
Speaker 1: when when she says she would like, you know, release
Speaker 1: and cry.
Speaker 2: It's one of those things I can't imagine. It's just
Speaker 2: it's heartbreaking.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And the lower staffing levels across the country also
Speaker 1: increase the burden on the remaining dispatchers, which makes them
Speaker 1: more susceptible to the burnout. So it's really this vicious cycle.
Speaker 1: And also since twenty twenty, in the wake of George Floyd,
Speaker 1: there's been a perception of nine one one as an
Speaker 1: enabler of the police. So these days there's a growing
Speaker 1: interest in alternative dispatch or alternative response programs that send
Speaker 1: public health and crisis intervention workers instead of cops to
Speaker 1: intervene with certain calls. And it's interesting when you look
Speaker 1: at the numbers because of the approximately two hundred and
Speaker 1: forty million calls made to nine one one every year,
Speaker 1: only a small fraction are for serious or violent crimes.
Speaker 1: The majority are calls like disorderly conduct and noise complaints,
Speaker 1: suspicious people are cars, and mental health issues and also
Speaker 1: things like substance use and homelessness, and so you really
Speaker 1: don't always need police as first responders.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, there is this tendency to think of
Speaker 2: police as kind of like this all purpose, you know
Speaker 2: force there, but they actually are only trained in very
Speaker 2: specific ways, and like you wouldn't call the cops to
Speaker 2: put out a fire, so it feels weird that we
Speaker 2: would call them to deal with a drug overdose or
Speaker 2: something else that they're really not equipped for, not trained for.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And alternative dispatch programs deploy public health professionals and
Speaker 1: crisis workers to situations involving mental health, substance abuse, and homelessness,
Speaker 1: so in other words, people who are specifically trained to
Speaker 1: resolve those emergencies. The Harvard Kennedy School Government Performance Lab
Speaker 1: the GPL, is working with fifteen jurisdictions across the country
Speaker 1: to develop and pilot some of these alternative responsestem right now, Yeah, all.
Speaker 2: This it does sort of highlight how knee jerk calling
Speaker 2: nine to one one can be, like whatever the emergency
Speaker 2: might be, actually there's this funny instance from September of
Speaker 2: twenty twenty three when the US Marines actually called nine
Speaker 2: to one one to report having lost you know what
Speaker 2: they lost? They lost an F thirty five fighter jet.
Speaker 1: It's not like you lost a cat or something.
Speaker 2: No, it's crazy, and it's it's just wild to read
Speaker 2: about this story. But eventually they found the pilot, but
Speaker 2: somehow not the jet. So if you see an F
Speaker 2: thirty five just roaming around your neighborhood, maybe slip a
Speaker 2: note to the Pentagon, just just let them know.
Speaker 1: Well, should we do a quick round up of funny
Speaker 1: nine one one calls from dispatchers on Reddit, because that
Speaker 1: would be a better way to do our fact off.
Speaker 2: I think we all know this is what this episode
Speaker 2: has been building too, So let's do it all right,
Speaker 2: Why don't I start with a classic straight from red quote.
Speaker 2: Lady called in because she thought Willie Nelson was having
Speaker 2: a cardiac arresque in her trailer and she needed an ambulance.
Speaker 2: I started giving her CPR instructions, and come to find
Speaker 2: out when paramedics got there, she was doing compressions on
Speaker 2: the couch cushions. Apparently she was just really.
Speaker 1: High tale as old as time. So I like this
Speaker 1: one quote. A concern citizen called in an animal stuck
Speaker 1: in a tree, and that animal was a bird.
Speaker 2: Oh, just stuck. I had another fun animal call quote.
Speaker 2: Middle of the night shift, get a report of a
Speaker 2: guy trying to ride on a moose. Officer attends there is,
Speaker 2: indeed a male trying to ride said moose. Male is
Speaker 2: wearing high visibility vest and helmet, which his girlfriend made
Speaker 2: him put on for safety reasons. Of course, I like that.
Speaker 1: That's actually a moose there in that scenario. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: this is another animal one quote. I talked to a
Speaker 1: pizza delivery guy who couldn't reach his destination because a
Speaker 1: defiant chicken was standing in the middle of the road.
Speaker 1: I stayed with him on the phone as he pleaded
Speaker 1: with it to finally move along. Truly a chicken crossing
Speaker 1: the road moment.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I see why they would call nine one. Why
Speaker 2: that does sound sound terrifying? So yeah, all right, So
Speaker 2: I'm gonna end on this one because I really love it.
Speaker 2: It is so brazen. Here we go. Quote. Got a
Speaker 2: call from one of the managers at a bowling alley
Speaker 2: complaining that their ice machine was broken and it's a
Speaker 2: really busy night, and if someone doesn't come to fix it,
Speaker 2: there will be no cold drinks. I mean, to be fair,
Speaker 2: no cold drinks at a bowling alley is an emergency.
Speaker 2: So you know this one seems maybe legit thinking more
Speaker 2: about it, anyway, what are you gonna end on, Mango?
Speaker 1: I mean, if you think about there will be blood
Speaker 1: that bowling alley is seeing. You know, turns dangerous when
Speaker 1: there's nothing to drink.
Speaker 2: Say it's legit now.
Speaker 1: I love the nine one one calls from kids who
Speaker 1: are calling to complain that their siblings being mean to
Speaker 1: them or won't share their legos. But I think my
Speaker 1: favorite one is about a kid and a mom. Uh
Speaker 1: so this is how it goes.
Speaker 3: Quote.
Speaker 1: A frazzled mother called because her six year old had
Speaker 1: gotten onto the roof and she couldn't get him down.
Speaker 1: She kept screaming about how we need to hurry, not
Speaker 1: because she was worried he would get hurt, but because
Speaker 1: he had done this before and the last time he
Speaker 1: peed in the air vents.
Speaker 2: All right, Well, nothing like a little pee in the
Speaker 2: air vent to seal a fact off. It's a cheap
Speaker 2: way to win it, Mango, But I'm gonna have to
Speaker 2: give you this week's trophy. So that's it for this
Speaker 2: week's Part Time Genius. If you like the show, want
Speaker 2: us to cover any topics, or just want to say
Speaker 2: hey to Dylan or tell him to take it easy
Speaker 2: on the hot sauce, we always love hearing from you.
Speaker 2: Just look for the contacts in the show notes.
Speaker 3: But as always, thanks so much for listening.
Speaker 1: Part Time Genius is a production of Kaleidoscope and iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1: This show is hosted by Will Pearson and me Mongas
Speaker 1: Chatikler and research by our goodpal Mary Philip Sandy. Today's
Speaker 1: episode was engineered and produced by the wonderful Dylan Fagan
Speaker 1: with support from Tyler Klang. The show is executive produced
Speaker 1: for iHeart by Katrina Norbel and Ali Perry, with social
Speaker 1: media support from Sasha Gay, Trustee Dara Potts and Viney Shorey.
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