First responders are the backbone of society. They extinguish fires, chase down criminals, resuscitate the gravely injured, and do so much more so that everyone can safely return to their families. These jobs put the brave men and women who undertake them in situations the rest of us hope we never have to face.
However, Reddit user Catsugh got interested in the moments that take by surprise even those dealing with emergencies on a daily basis. So, she asked them to describe the most memorable calls they’ve ever had. Here are the replies she has received.
#1
Harley motorcycle tipped over and the clutch lever went into a 4 year old’s eye. Parent was on the line asking what to do. Suddenly, she said, “They’re going lift the motorcycle.” I emphatically told her to tell them to stop and wait for rescue and EMS. Rescue ended up cutting off the clutch lever and transporting the kid to hospital. She underwent surgery. That was 1982. Just last year, I met the lead rescue officer and the girl herself, now fully grown. They wanted to meet the 911 operator that saved her vision.
Image credits: shadow_carlson
#2
Former Deputy. One morning I was the early person in to take calls as the night shift was headed out and to cover what trickled in as shift change took place.
It’s cold and rainy and miserable all around. I’m on my way to someone’s house to talk to them about a phone scam when a call comes out to another unit who just marked on duty. He lives across the county from where this call came out. A mother has called in stating her little girl got out of the house while she was getting her ready for a bath. Her daughter is non-verbal and naked and mom can’t find her.
Everyone that owned a radio in the county started to mark in route, last night’s shift, court bailiffs, the d**n Major-everyone was coming. I actually had to wait to get onto the radio to let dispatch know I was now in the area, turning onto the road.
The way this road was situated was a hairpin turn off a highway that led to a dead end at a lake with a stretch in the middle of it going up towards the houses. As I make this right turn and am about to head up towards the residence, something catches my eye. This litte girl is standing at the edge of this lake, just staring at it.
I bolt from my car, snatch her up in my coat, and start hoofing it back towards the houses. Some stranger just grabbed her and she’s crying and trying to wiggle free. Mom sees me about half way and nearly tackles me as she comes in for the biggest hug probably any of us has ever experienced. The baby was cold, but safe, and unharmed.
We made sure to get mom in contact with a resource that would get her little girl a tracking bracelet and she rejoiced to learn that such a thing existed.
A couple days later, the mom delivered flowers and a card to me at the office. I still have it, years later, and it still makes me smile.
Sure, there’s some stories of horrible things, but there’s also good calls you can’t forget. Although I have real mixed feelings about my time in law enforcement, I know that day I did good.
Image credits: Boogypc
#3
Firefighter emt recent call actually still fresh in memory only 2 days ago fatal accident 16 year old female deceased at the scene low speed (20kmh) accident but airbags deployed shouldve been a simple move the cars get them home but she had her feet on the dashboard and the airbags broke her legs one pierced her heart the other d**n near decapitated her
so if you ever get the idea putting your feet up on the dash is a good idea…dont.
Image credits: spartan-moose245
#4
This isn’t mine, but a friend of mine fielded this call. An elderly gentleman called 911 to notify them that his wife had passed in her sleep. Only it was like 7 o’clock at night. Apparently he just couldn’t deal with it emotionally, so he got her dressed, took her out to the car, and drove around doing his errands for the day. Watched some TV together. And then after 12 or so hours he finally sort of accepted that she was gone and called 911.
Image credits: Hysterymystery
#5
I responded POV to a motorcycle crash as a volunteer EMT in a small mountain town. A lady was coming down a rocky canyon when (her husband believes) she likely feel asleep (medically related drowsiness in her history). She launched “Dukes of Hazard” style off the road edge about 50ft with a 30ft drop into a mat of bushes. Her body hit and snapped a 4-5″ diameter fir tree. There were civilians all over and down in the ditch helping her already. No LE on scene yet, volunteer FD just arriving, and Air Med in route, too.
I get down to her and she is on a good samaritan’s backboard. After a quick assessment and some ABCs mitigation I decide it’s best to get her to the road – we can hardly stand in the brambles and taking vitals is a nightmare. With the help of civilians and the local type 4 forest service fire engine we got her up to the road.
(The extent of her injuries were later relayed to us by the Air Med service) She had rapid and irregular breathing but absent breath sounds (both lungs were collapsed) on both sides, weak/thready radial pulses, blown pupil, broken collarbone, broken tib/fib, broken lumbar, broken ribs, a lacerated liver, her vitals were not good and she would only make pain noises, sometimes the words were audible about her back pain. Convening with the flight medics, her outlook did not look great and I helped load her up into the bird thinking she would be lucky if she made it to the hospital.
Fast forward a year(ish) later, she WALKED into the Forest Service I worked at looking for me to say thank you. I was in the field that day, so I was not able to meet with her, but it was a great reminder as to why I got my EMT in the first place. I was astonished and so thankful to hear of her recovery.
Edit: Thank you so much for the awards! There are a lot of stories on both sides of the spectrum in this field and often the awful ones stick around for a while. I’m glad when I read this prompt that a heartwarming story came to mind. Thank you reddit community! I’m so glad she made it and I hope to run into her at that trauma conference someday.
Image credits: crounds0419
#6
Man called to report a male was breaking into his neighbors vehicle across the street. A few minutes into the call the man came and started to break into the callers vehicle. A few minutes later the man spotted my caller and broke into his house from the window. Spent 10 minutes listening to physical fight when I finally heard the police enter the house and say “there’s blood everywhere.” Both intruder and caller died. Oh, and another 911 dispatcher had my callers wife and kids on another line who were hiding upstairs and heard everything.
I talked a lot of people who were shot/stabbed/beaten in the final moments of their lives but you usually get them after the situation occurred. This caller was just trying to look out for his neighbor and I spent a good 15-20 minutes bantering while waiting for officers to arrive and get the auto thief. Getting to joke around and get to know someone’s personality before they violently die hit a lot different than taking a call after violence had occurred.
Image credits: meshellella
#7
Someone called stating they had seen a man on a small island on the lake hours ago but now the man was gone and his boat is still out there.
An older woman called in a half hour later stating her husband had gone missing, he was last seen taking his boat out on the lake sometime overnight. The increasing tension in her voice as she noticed sheriff’s deputies were already dredging the lake was something else. She was calm but clearly actively dealing with the fact her husband was likely dead. They found his body not long after I hung up with her.
Sometimes it’s the people screaming that get to you, sometimes its the quiet acceptance of a horrible truth that stays with you longer.
Image credits: GameDrain
#8
I remember odd things people say under stress…
A girl’s arm was ripped to shreds in a dog mauling, she kept using the word “meat”. “There’s shredded meat everywhere!” And she continued to say it as she found pieces of her arm on the ground. “Is that a piece of my meat?!” and “Huhuhu, omg it’s my meat!!”
Some others…
“I brought you the asparagus. The asparagus!!” -guy who came back from the market to find his partner dead.
“C’mon buddy! Don’t do this. It’s Valentine’s Day!” -homeless passerby who started CPR on a distraught woman’s husband who collapsed at a gas pump.
Image credits: evel333
#9
My dads a firefighter and for most of my younger childhood he didn’t expose much of what he’s seen/gone through in his career. As I’ve gotten older, he’s shared a bit more and one day shared a perspective with me that opened my eyes to the full scope of what he does for the community. My brother and I were discussing my brothers military deployment and how some guys from his unit were struggling with PTSD and my dad said that something that isn’t talked about often is how many people walking the street who do what he does often have the same thing happening to them but for an entire career/lifetime. I asked him what he meant and he shared with me that it only took him about 3 years on the job before he couldn’t truly celebrate any holiday anymore. Obviously this was met with some confusion on my end but he said that every holiday/event in the yearly calendar is marred in his memory by some earth shattering event he was called to for work. 4th of July for him is a child having drowned in a pool while parents were occupied with entertaining guests. Thanksgiving is car wreck in which the drunk driver walked away while their sober brother was in the passenger seat having their skull crushed by the frame of the vehicle he was driving. He has an entire calendar year of these and that was the part that really stunned me. Gave me a whole new respect for the guy.
Image credits: anon
#10
Was an EMT before I became a nurse. Call came in for an MVC (motor vehicle collision) with two trapped. On arrival, cops said 2 young woman, early 20s, drinking and going too fast and flipped their car. Driver ejected. Then, we hear passenger screaming….”she’s pregnant! Be careful, she’s pregnant!” Jaws hit the floor as the smell of alcohol on both them and their car was overwhelming. We wanted to airlift the driver, but medic on scene said no. She had fractured literally, almost every bone in her body. Open, compound fracture of tibia/fibula (two bones lower leg and fractured femurs. Normal protocol didn’t work because we can’t pull traction on femur for the open fracture and can’t MAST pants because she has massive pelvic trauma/fractures with obvious internal bleeding signs and symptoms. Picking up her leg was like picking up jello. Had no substance to it. Was shattered beyond belief. We transported both of them together and not sure how we kept driver alive. She obviously lost the baby. Miscarriage started in back of ambulance. Rushed her in for emergency surgery. If I remember, she broke both legs, pelvis, arms, clavicles, ribs, facial breaks, skull fractures, brain bleeds, spleen ruptured, bowel damaged, lost uterus and ovaries and I don’t even remember what else. First bad accident scene as an EMT. Will never forget that feeling of holding a leg with no bone left to hold it together.
Image credits: LupusWarriorRN
#11
My friend is a first responder. He once got a call about a man that had fallen in the shower. He gets there and the guy is over 400 pounds and out cold on the bathroom floor. My friend, his partner and the guys roommate try everything they can think of to get the guy on the stretcher, but the bathroom is tiny and they can’t even roll him over. Eventually they call two more ambulances and finally get the guy out of the bathroom.
They get to the elevator and it’s too small to fit the guy on the stretcher. So six paramedics have to carry the guy down five flights of stairs.
My friend called in sick for the rest of the week cause he was so sore and stiff, he couldn’t move.
Image credits: idontdigdinosaurs
#12
Volunteer Firefighter in Europe. Some summers ago we were called as first responders to a motorcycle accident. When we arrived the cyclist was obviously badly hurt after crashing in a car. But he was orientated and seemed okay, ambulance and helicopter were on their way already, so we just had to stabilize him. Not a minute later he started deteriorating, another minute later we started CPR.
One of the arriving bystanders was a trauma surgeon and started helping immediately, shortly after the doctor on the helicopter arrived. It was obvious that there was massive internal bleeding, they first tried to relieve pressure by puncturing and then pretty soon decided that the only chance was to open him up. So they managed a clamshell thoractomy in the middle of the street, and one started to give the heart direct compressions. The bleeding was massive and they discovered that there was a aortic rupture.
The blood loss was too extreme and he died there. Still to this day I have to drive slowly when I pass by that stretch of road.
Image credits: Cyrond
#13
Car wreck, late night heavily forested mountain road. Drunk woman flying down the highway, lost control and flipped the car multiple times. We arrive and shes unconscious, boarded and shipped. After about 45 minutes, we’re gearing up to leave is when we find the empty baby car seat.
Took another 45 minutes to find the body.
Image credits: lionofwar87
#14
Little 4 year old girl got ran over by her grandmother with a lawnmower that was on. It was not the gore or the blood that got me, it was the utter panic of the family, and the way they broke down when the helicopter took off with her inside.
Image credits: LoanSurvivor19
#15
My first cardiac arrest call.
An old lady had woken up to her husband not breathing. He’d passed at some point during the night it seems, but all I was given at the start of the call was that he wasn’t breathing, so I launched into CPR instructions.
They lived out of town, so it took the ambulance crew about 25 minutes to get out to them.
There was nothing crazy about the call and I’ve dealt with way more traumatic calls in the 2 years since, but at some point during the call, she realised he was gone and you could hear it in her voice.
That shift in tone is what sticks with me.
Image credits: juzzzyb
#16
A mother called because her kid pulled a pot of oil off the stove and it spilled on his face. she said she could see the skin peeling off his face.
Image credits: Humans_Being_Bros
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