17 craziest things emergency services dispatchers have ever heard on the job

A former emergency services operator, Ricardo Martinez II, reveals how “super-human patience” is one of the unwritten job requirements for an emergency services operator: “It was around two in the morning on a relatively quiet night when a man – obviously inebriated – called to demand a breathaliser test. Apparently, he’d been kicked out of a bar, and he was outraged because he was certain he wasn’t legally drunk and wanted to prove it.” When Martinez declined, explaining to the guy this wasn’t an emergency, the man not only became verbally abusive, he also kept calling. And calling. And calling – until Martinez finally dispatched a trooper to arrest the guy for misuse of 000.

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Quora contributor Scott Pritchard is a paramedic with a long list of ridiculous calls. One really stands out: the guy who called for a paramedic after running over a pigeon in his car. He asked for paramedics to rush to the scene with a defibrillator – for the pigeon.

Pritchard once got a call from a woman who said she couldn’t walk. Her legs were fine, she said, but she was thirsty and could someone bring her a glass of water? A week later, the same woman called – this time she needed someone to help her get dressed.

Read on for some unexpected reasons you’re always thirsty.

Pritchard has a surprising number of outrageous stories involving medical professionals. These include:

The nurse who wanted help popping a pimple.

The nurse who was afraid she had poisoned herself by sniffing bleach.

The doctor who had the flu and thought if she called, she’d get better treatment.

The emergency services dispatcher and Reddit contributor Random-Miser took a call from a woman requesting an ambulance because she’d received a package containing packing peanuts (made of styrofoam, of course), and was terrified they’d cause a deadly reaction in her peanut-sensitive child.

Check out these things your allergy specialist wishes you knew.

Reddit contributor Mubzie’s mum is an emergency services dispatcher, and she talks about the time she got a call from a girl in gym class at the local high school. The girl was in a panic because there was a squirrel on top of a nearby telephone pole, and it wasn’t coming down.

When a caller begins with “I swear I’m not crazy,” that’s when it’s time to “buckle up,” according to Reddit contributor Erczilla, who has been working as an emergency services dispatcher for 22 years. “One guy started a call with those words after escaping from his apartment; he insisted his roommates had turned into giant crabs.” The dispatcher did send help – for the guy since it turned out he was on a bad drug trip.

Another Reddit contributor, Anoncop1, is a police officer who went on a call to the home of a man who had stabbed himself in the gut with two different pens. While waiting for the pens to be removed, the man was “happy as can be,” Anoncop1 recalls:

“Can I tell you a secret?” the man said to Anoncop1.

“Sure,” Anoncop1 replied.

“I want to push the pens in further.”

“Please don’t do that,” Anoncop1 said calmly.

“I already did,” the man replied.

I had a drunk person call to report he was being harassed at a pizzeria,” recalls Reddit contributor, Tkokilroy. As it turned out the cops were already on site, and the man wasn’t being harassed, he was being arrested for throwing pizza at people. “I still laugh about it to this day,” Tkokilroy adds.

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“My mum is an emergency services operator, she gets some insanely stupid calls,” notes Reddit contributor, Ddeevv.  “I remember a few years ago, there was a huge pileup involving several cars and fatalities. Clearly, it caused kilometres of traffic. A woman called emergency services, insisting that she get escorted out of the traffic by a trooper.” She wanted to make it home in time for Jeopardy.