9-1-1 by J. S. Marlo

J. S. Marlo's BWL Books

Aside from staying home and eating too much, I've been painting my bathrooms and babysitting my five-year old granddaughter whose parents need to work. Every day, my granddaughter gets virtual homework from her kindergarten teacher, which is really cool, but I've also been teaching her other things, among them how or when to call 9-1-1.

She's known for years how to unlock my phone, so I told her there was a special number to call in case of emergency. Then, I made sure she understood what an emergency was:

- Grand-maman dropping a full gallon of paint from the top of her ladder is a catastrophe, but NOT an emergency.

- Grand-maman falling from the top of her ladder and not being able to get up is an emergency.

 So, what's the first question she asked me: why did they pick THAT number, grand-maman?

Good question, I thought. I did some research and stumbled on an article written on February 16, 2017 in the Smithsonian Magazine about a 9-1-1 festival.

 "On this day in 1968, a phone rang in the police station of Haleyville, Alabama. But unlike all the days before, the caller—Alabama Speaker of the House Rankin Fite, who was not in an emergency situation—didn’t dial the local police number.

He dialed 911, a three-digit number that would go down in local and national history.

The idea for a universal emergency phone number didn’t start in Haleyville, a town of fewer than 5,000 inhabitants that was dry until 2010. It started with a 1957 recommendation from the National Association of Fire Chiefs, writes Carla Davis for the Alabama News Center.

Their recommendation was prompted by a serious problem, she writes: before 911, anyone who needed emergency help had to figure out if they needed the fire department, the police, or medical help, and then call the appropriate local number. Not easy to do when someone is bleeding, a baby is being born, or the building’s on fire.

It took more than a decade before the fire chiefs’ recommendation was put into effect, Davis writes. Haleyville came into the picture when the president of the Alabama Telephone Co., an independent telephone company, fought to have his company launch the new system.

The call was picked up at the police station on a special red phone, wrote Hoyt Harwell for the Associated Press on 911’s 25th anniversary in 1993. At the receiving end of the call was Congressman Tom Bevill, Alabama’s longest-serving congressman—who was still in office when Harwell interviewed him 25 years after that first call.

Haleyville still celebrates the event that put it on the map with an annual 911 Festival."

So, why 9-1-1? These are the major reasons why AT&T chose the number 9-1-1 in 1968:

- because it was short & simple
- because it was easy to remember
- because it was quick & easy to dial
- because of the middle 1, which indicated a special number that worked well with the phone systems in place at the time.

That being said, 9-1-1 is an emergency number used mostly in North America (Canada, USA, Mexico). In Europe, you would dial 1-1-2 in case of emergency.  And in Australia, 0-0-0.

Here are some funny and disturbing (and hopefully false) 9-1-1 calls:

Female caller: There are alligators in the river.

9-1-1 operator: Yes ma’am, this is Florida.

Female caller: But my kids play and swim in that river.

9-1-1 operator: Why do you let your kids play and swim in alligator infested waters?

Stay safe. Hugs!
JS

 

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