Kids dialing 999

[gary r]

my son called 999 last night because i sent him upto his room!!! the police called back to see if there was a problem,my friends son also called 999 once when she cut his toe nails too short!!!!

 

[ELL]

It would be easy to blame the parents.

Yep, after all who else is to blame?

 

[Lisa21]

 

[ComedyPilot]

ha ha

 

[rich p]

He should know better at the age of 28 though.

 

[fossyant]

When you hear the sirens panic.

My nephew did this, next thing woo woo

 

[Grizzly]

Trust me, I've been to worse calls.

 

[Cubist]

I remember one particularly bad-tempered comms operator who would ring back the parents of child-dialled 999 calls and berate them for allowing the kids to play with the phone etc etc. As room supervisor I had the facility to monitor or snoop the calls so I decided once I'd listen in. The woman whose kids had dialled 999 was trying to excuse the kids, and after he ticked her off for wasting valuable emergency call time ended the conversation by pointing out that the kids wouldn't be able to dial 999 with broken fingers. Horrified I ran the tape back to make sure I hadn't misheard before we had a "step into my office" moment, and realised that he had actually cleared the call before he said it. Cured my constipation though......

 

[Maz]

my friends son also called 999 once when she cut his toe nails too short!!!!

Did the police file it away?

 

[ufkacbln]

We have had anecdotally:

Can't find TV remote / Can someone please come and programme the TV

Asking to relay messages as the mobile phone was running out of batteries


My favourite must have been last year's stolen snowman... and it was genuine!

 

[BigonaBianchi]

my son called 999 last night because i sent him upto his room!!!

thas actually pretty cute...ha ha! That'll be one for the family memories.

 

[gaz]

My mother tells me that I once told my sister to ring 999 when we where little. I don't recall it.

I mistakenly dialled 999 (112) the other day when trying to get through to my local station, i mistakenly thought that 112 was the non-emergency number. whoops!

 

[Nigel-YZ1]

There are people that know ambulance crew and vehicle travel patterns so well that they will dial 999 from home, get the ambulance out, be picked up, and then kick up a fuss and insist on being let out, conveniently outside the supermarket.
There are some that will fake symptoms just to get gas administered.

It's a strange world...

While at work I once dialled an internal phone extension, only to find an out of office diversion had been set up to 999.

 

[Maz]

Why was 999 chosen as the number?
With the old rotary dial phones, that number took ages to dial! Much better to have had '111', for example.

 

[Cubist]

Why was 999 chosen as the number?
With the old rotary dial phones, that number took ages to dial! Much better to have had '111', for example.

Because it took dedication to dial a number the far end of the dial by accident. Also, it was supposedly easy to find the 9 with your fingers in the dark/smokelogged situation you found yourself in.