by Victoria Walker
My mother once told me this little story and I’ve thought about it periodically for almost 20 years now.
She had a friend who was a 911 operator who told the story to her.
Apparently the paramedics had relayed it to her after the event.
As the story goes, there was an elderly couple who lived alone.
They were both in failing health, but the husband more so than the wife. She was wheelchair bound, hard of hearing, and had no hearing aid.
Something happened one day and the husband collapsed.
The wife hurried to the phone and dialed 911. She could hear some sort of talking on the other end but couldn’t make it out so she just kept saying: “Send an ambulance!”
The talking continued but she still couldn’t understand what it was telling her.
“Please send an ambulance,” the old woman went on. “Send an ambulance.”
That ambulance never came.
A neighbor stopped by shortly after to find her still on the phone, crying for help.
“Send an ambulance!”
Moving closer, the neighbor discovered the poor woman had dialed 411 instead of 911 and was hearing the automated system the whole time.
The husband was dead when the neighbor arrived.
But no one ever told her of her mistake.
Thank goodness for that because it would have wrecked her.
***
Victoria Walker is a former night auditor who describes herself as an ‘eco-friendly and generally happy person.’
