Please do not start an IMO debate, because I can't post in IMO, but I feel the need to inform this. I am sharing this out of concern that anyone else can find himself in such a situation.
We all know how excellent 911 is when you are in an emergency and need help (Such as, you are in a building that is in flames and everything is coming down around you). But you should also keep with you (in places like your cell's phone number listings) the other emergency numbers, you know the regular number for emergencies for medical emergency, fire department, state police and so on. Just in case 911 doesn't work at that moment. It might just not.
It's because yesterday night there was a fire at the CROEM's dorm (CROEM is a British style boarding high school in the west coast of Puerto Rico with high admission requirements). The firefighters arrived there late... late enough to have to take nine students to the hospital for respiratory problems. Let's just say the 911 dispatcher refused to send for help. As the interview by Univisión Puerto Rico TV, and then the El Nuevo DÃ:censor:a newspaper, goes, one of the girls there asks her roomate if she knows the number for the Mayagüez office of FDPR, she says she doesn't know, she they called 911 from her cell phone. The dispatcher asked her if she was with the police. She says no. The dispatcher asks the girl how old is she (take note: She is inside a burning building at 1 AM with several other hundred teenaged students with their lives at risk). She answers the truth. She is 15 years old. Thats when the dispatcher says "I cannot take it, you are a minor." and hangs up on her. She calls again and this time its even better, the dispatcher says "ponme a un mayor de edad para poder creertelo" (Put on an adult so I can believe it). This is the stage when the principal finally is woken up and manages to get the place evacuated, while the firefighters arrive.
Honestly, I am still scared with the idea of having to some day in the future call 911 in an emergency, not out of the emergency, but out of having them hang up on me, because I'm a "minor".
I know this sounds like a joke, but it isn't. Its right now becoming the major scandal of the day around here. My only asking, is to simply take a moment and find out the alternative numbers to 911, you know, your police station, medical emergency, the fire department, and so on, and log them into your cell's list, just in case something happens when you call 911. Its a one in a million scenario, but just in case.
We all know how excellent 911 is when you are in an emergency and need help (Such as, you are in a building that is in flames and everything is coming down around you). But you should also keep with you (in places like your cell's phone number listings) the other emergency numbers, you know the regular number for emergencies for medical emergency, fire department, state police and so on. Just in case 911 doesn't work at that moment. It might just not.
It's because yesterday night there was a fire at the CROEM's dorm (CROEM is a British style boarding high school in the west coast of Puerto Rico with high admission requirements). The firefighters arrived there late... late enough to have to take nine students to the hospital for respiratory problems. Let's just say the 911 dispatcher refused to send for help. As the interview by Univisión Puerto Rico TV, and then the El Nuevo DÃ:censor:a newspaper, goes, one of the girls there asks her roomate if she knows the number for the Mayagüez office of FDPR, she says she doesn't know, she they called 911 from her cell phone. The dispatcher asked her if she was with the police. She says no. The dispatcher asks the girl how old is she (take note: She is inside a burning building at 1 AM with several other hundred teenaged students with their lives at risk). She answers the truth. She is 15 years old. Thats when the dispatcher says "I cannot take it, you are a minor." and hangs up on her. She calls again and this time its even better, the dispatcher says "ponme a un mayor de edad para poder creertelo" (Put on an adult so I can believe it). This is the stage when the principal finally is woken up and manages to get the place evacuated, while the firefighters arrive.
Honestly, I am still scared with the idea of having to some day in the future call 911 in an emergency, not out of the emergency, but out of having them hang up on me, because I'm a "minor".
I know this sounds like a joke, but it isn't. Its right now becoming the major scandal of the day around here. My only asking, is to simply take a moment and find out the alternative numbers to 911, you know, your police station, medical emergency, the fire department, and so on, and log them into your cell's list, just in case something happens when you call 911. Its a one in a million scenario, but just in case.
