I've called once when the driver of a vehicle (ahead of me) going around a curve lost control and smashed into the embankment. It was a quick and expedient way to get medical support on the scene.

Naturally 10 years or so ago this sort of call would not have taken place due to the general unavailability of cell phones. (Side point: isn't it interesting how plotlines for old shows/movies hinge on plot devices where people are unable to communicate with each other and thus keep missing each other?)

Growing up in a third world country, it was generally considered pointless to call 911 (actually 119 there) -- people made do for themselves, whether it was a fire, intruder or medical services required. I recall in one case where the local community caught, beat and subsequently hung a burglar -- the cops were called to take away the body after the fact.

There is strong resonance for the "I don't call 911" ethos among friends and family who tend to be pro-gun. To be completely frank, its not so much an anti-911 stance as it is an anti calling the police for help stance.

On a separate note/tip: If you dial 911 by mistake (this happens often from my business), stick around to explain the mistake instead of hanging up. This will save the time of the local emergency services department in dispatching people to investigate the "hang-up" call.

Memory is a strange bell, jubilee and knell.

I've never called them, but they did call me once.  I was in the midst of a furious lovemaking session with a beautiful Italian opera singer, and she had just vocally disintegrated most of my stemmed glassware.

You mention the British 999, which always puzzled me back in the day when all we had were rotary phones. Considering the likelihood that time is of the essence during an emergency, why wasn't the emergency number the much shorter 111 (younger TnTers, please refer to my link)? Anyone? Was it just a case of someone not thinking things through? Which if true, invites the question: how did they ever manage to run an Empire?

I've called 110 (germany) only once, upon seeing a horse run free on a street leading up to a mainstreet, and I didn't know the number of the local police. Wasn't really an emergency, but could have become one quickly if something startled (and thus started) the horse.

Well, I figured I'd run through the list. Thankfully, none was really life/death, although any of them could have been much worse than they turned out to be.

#1: Unfortunately, I had to drive through Utah one morning on my way back home. Regrettably, I decided to get off the highway for gas and was involved in a car accident. Thankfully, nobody was injured although my car was totaled. So, I called 911. However, despite the best efforts of myself and the other interested parties we could only get busy signals. No matter how many times we called. Unfortunately, I had watched Dawn of the Dead the week before, and as you may be aware, in the initial scenes when all hell breaks loose one character attempts to call 911 only to find it busy due to everybody calling in to report a zombie attack. So, in my panic induced state I concluded: 1) I am stuck in Utah, with no obvious way of getting back home. A fate worse than death. 2) My car is totaled. 3) There is a zombie plague underway.  It was not cool.

However, a passing policeman soon spotted us and alerted the rest of the calvary. Luckily, thanks to AAA (THAT was one towing bill they probably have framed in an office somewhere) and a friendly tow-truck driver I was able to get home before being eaten by zombies.

#2: I was driving on a lonely interstate late at night after an ice storm when I saw several cars off the road on the other side. I called 911 to report them. The cop answering the phones didn't seem too happy to be there. Later on the highway ended up being closed and I had to stop off at some scary Dennys where the waiter seemed strangely interested in whether or not I had completed my christmas shopping. Anyway, I ended up talking to the local 5-0 at the truck stop about all the road blocks and they told me a back way to get around them (with the exception of the original blockage, all of the police presence was only at the on-ramps so if you could theoretically get on the highway you were good). I have absolutely no idea how I did it, and I'm pretty sure I was on a dirt road for some time and what I did was probably illegal, but it got me back on the highway where my only company was salt trucks and the occasional local who talked his way past the on-ramp checkpoint or took some back way on like I did.

#3: I was living in a tiny apartment when I was awoken at 3:30am by two loud people screaming outside my door about how they were gonna kill each other and who had a knife or what type of weapon and what they were gonna do about it if she broke up with him/he didn't leave her alone. This continued for 20-30 minutes and I finally went outside and asked them politely to keep their loud domestic to a minimum volume. I was advised "Hey A__, why don't you go and f_ yourself, we're trying to have a serious discussion (interjection) (racial slur) (exclamatory utterance)!" I called the cops. They came and told him to get his drunk ass back in to bed. The next morning all the other residents said they were gonna call the cops, but "didn't want to get involved." The landlord called me first and said normally he'd evict the guy, but the person came over to his office and apologized so much that he figured he'd give him one more chance since he was a "good person" (eg the rent checks came on time every month). A few days later I was looking through the state prison register online and found out the guy was on parole after doing 5-15 for attempted murder and armed robbery. I then realized why he was begging the landlord to stay so badly, because if he got evicted it would violate his parole and his rear-end would go back to making license plates. Jerk.

#4: My dog was barking like crazy during a blizzard. She doesn't usually bark at people outside (we've trained her pretty decently) and since this was her panic/trouble/imminent threat bark that we seldom hear, I went to the front window and saw these two huge guys having an all out battle royale in front of my house. They were beating each other up and one guy was literally repeatedly picking the other up and tossing him into parked cars. In a snow storm, mind you, so every 3rd or 5th step they'd both fall on their rears due to the slickness of the road. So I called 911. They were pretty cool about it, and the cops came and picked up both of the guys, slammed them down face first on the hoods of their cars and fixed the problem. It looked like a friggin' movie.

#5: I got woken up at 4am by loud screaming along the lines of "I'M GONNA KILL YOU! YOU <redacted>" and then various racial slurs. I looked out my window to see some huge dude with some lady screaming at her about how she better get back in the car or else he'd kill her. He was slapping her repeatedly. Jerk. So, I called the cops, thinking this was going to get ugly. Thankfully, it did not and they arrived rather quickly to resolve the situation.

I've called 911 twice. The first time was an early Sunday morning when the sound of smashing glass alerted me to a someone breaking into a car in the parking lot across from my window. The second was was upon hearing screaming from an alley, which turned out to be a homeless guy assaulting another homeless guy.

About 15 years ago, on a Saturday night I'm lying in my bed on one hot summer night with my window open.  I am awoken to the sounds of Jimmy.  A friend of mine I had known since childhood  A good guy, nice, friendly, kind, but totally drunk out of his skull.  Now, it was no secret that he had a crush on the girl next door to me, Kim.  She's a cutey, but a nefarious urban girl, who is attracted to boys a bit tougher.  Well her bedroom was on the second floor.  So on this particular night, at about 2AM, Jimmy wants to climb up to her window.  She is awake and she's like "Jimmy, go home, you're drunk!"  But Jimmy is love struck so he starts a climbin.  And then he starts a fallin.  He basically blows out his entire knee, torn ligaments, knee cap ripped off.  It's gruesome. The rest of my family sleeps right through this.  I get up and go out to him, see the situation and call 911.  Then I run about 6 blocks away to his house and wake his family.  His father was PISSED at me.  He thought I was out drinking and carousing with Jimmy, he wanted to blame me.  I tell him that I was sleeping when all this happened, here I am barefoot in my pajamas.  Anyway, by the time his dad gets to the scene, the ambulance had already taken Jimmy to the hospital.  He recovered nicely though, but he has a dandy scar on his right knee from the event.  

Epilogue:
Eventually, Jimmy DOES hook up with Kim, but it was a short-lived relationship, never meant to be.  

I never called 911 until I moved to Los Angeles. Since then, I've called probably four or five times, only one that I considered vaguely serious to my own safety. The most recent occassion (to report someone else's car on fire on a freeway offramp) was the only time when I was not put on hold. "911, please hold" is not the kind of response you expect or want. Even after getting through, you're usually bumped to your local police which takes even longer.

The first time I called 911 was actually kind of funny. There were two short mexican dudes fist fighting in the middle of Van Nuys Blvd near the Walmart at 10 o'clock at night and a chick on the sidewalk beside herself, trying to get them to break it up. It was a pulling each other's shirt off, rolling through the lanes disrupting traffic sort of fight.

I called 911 once when a fellow driver threatened to "blast me" because I wouldn't let him cut me off. I only called because he seemed drunk. They so didn't care. And then when the black woman on the other end told the police officer on the other end that "this man says another driver threatened to blast him" I felt really white. I gave the police officer on the phone the license plate number and car description and made the mistake of allowing that I couldn't be 100% sure those were the exact license plate numbers. So he was able to respond, "Well, what are we supposed to do then? We can't go pulling somebody over on this information. What if it's wrong and we get sued for violating someone's civil rights?" If you hadn't noticed -- cops in this town DO NOT CARE. I've been hit by an unlicensed driver with no identification -- dispatcher refused to send anyone -- and been verbally warned -- by cops who didn't bother getting out of their cars -- for running stop signs and cross walks. Just this morning I ran an inconsequential red light directly in front of a cop car just because I knew he wouldn't give a shit.

The only time I ever felt threatened that I called 911 was when it looked like someone had broken into the crawl space beneath my girlfriend's duplex. The lock was broken and the light was on down there. After I finally got through, ten officers were there within a minute and a half so at least there was that to say for the system.

make it rain you nappy headed ho's

I called 911 after 6-7 men wearing masks broke into my house, tied me up and threatened me with a knife to my throat.... but I only did it at the landlords insistence. Police never caught them, nothing that was stolen was ever returned, so there wasn't really any point.

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I've never called 911, but my wife has at least twice:  both times I had stopped breathing.

The first time I had sharp pains in my chest and couldn't breathe.  As the paramedics and firefighters barged through the front door, I coughed up a pomegranate seed, and felt much better.  That was a little embarrassing.

The second time, a few years later, I just stopped breathing again.  The ambulance arrived while I was thinking whether or not I had made my last life insurance payment.  They threw me in the vehicle, injected me with something, and I managed to get a few breaths in.  They asked me if I smoked and I said, No.  They were puzzled.  I said, "Does this happen a lot to people who smoke?"  "All the time," they said.  

Holy crap.

If I was a smoker and this happened because of that, I'd never touch another ciggy for the rest of my life.

Anyway, it was my first severe asthma attack - never had one before.  The doctor assured me that not breathing would make me pass out, and once that happened, I'd start breathing normally again.  Thanks, doc.

In this day of ubiquitous cell phones, I'm surprised at the "a least twice in their lifetime" figure cited in the story. I've called 911 at least a half-dozen times, mostly for car accidents (once because of a mattress in the middle of the westbound PA Turnpike - an accident waiting to happen). On only one of those occasions was I the first one to have called in the accidents, so it's mostly been, "Oh, you know about that already? Okay, thanks, goodbye."

or were you talking about me?

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