Lazy Daze Owners' Group

Calling 911 when you're not "local"

October 15, 2019, 11:16:16 am

This article from the Technomadia site may interest some:

INTRUDER ALERT – Important Tip Learned For Reaching 911 When You're Not...

Re: Calling 911 when you're not "local"

Reply #2 – October 15, 2019, 12:42:27 pm

"people don't need to worry in most cases while traveling. You will be connected to the authorities who serve the area where your phone is currently located."

Right. Now, the Technomads' situation was different: the were dealing with an emergency that was not in their current area. Their broken-into boat was a thousand miles away. Nevertheless, their advice to ferret out the "secret" PSAP number for the place where your stored boat (or for RVers, homebase) is located is not the best, as they admit at the end of the article:

"[911] should be able to help get you in touch, as the national PSAP directory is available to all law enforcement agencies. Several emergency workers who chimed in on our thread indicated that if you think it’s an emergency, it’s an emergency – and you should call 911."

Yes, knowing the phone number of the police in the location where your boat or home is can't hurt... but as the Technomads found out, even that doesn't always help. The police department in the town where their boat was stored had closed for the night, leaving a voicemail message to call 911 in emergencies.

Bottom line: just call 911. It doesn't matter whether you're a thousand miles from home, or the emergency is a thousand miles from where you are; they can get help.

Re: Calling 911 when you're not "local"

Reply #4 – October 19, 2019, 10:12:12 am

I have had two bad experiences with 911 while traveling. The worst was in McKinzie River Oregon. I had just driven down from the north along a steep mountain road and parked by the ranger station to access the bottom of a famous mt bike trail there which if you are interested has some beautiful hiking too.The awesome McKenzie River Trail

Anyway I was riding a brief section of highway to access the trail when a car with kayaks flew by me at 50mph that had a paddle mounted sideways that had worked loose and was sticking way out the passenger side which nearly took my head off. Fortunately the road had a wide shoulder where I was and it barely missed me. I immediately thought of two road riders i saw going uphill as i had driven down that this car was going to soon meet and the road up there was very narrow. I immediately stopped and called 911 to tell them they need to get a cop to stop this car ASAP. The 911 operator had her procedures of asking my name location nature of emergency etc. Then she said I'd need to hold to be transferred to the proper 911 operator. I was visualizing this car rapidly approaching the road bikers as she jumped me through procedural hoops.
Operator number two gets on the line and starts asking me all the same questions i just answered. I blew my top and said all this information is available from operator number one, time is of the essence here and your freaking procedures are going to kill someone! She calmly made me answer all the questions again and finally said ok we will report your call to the local sheriff. I blew up again and told her its too late now you guys and your proper rigid procedures have likely killed someone you freaking idiots.
I continued on my ride and accessed the trail which parallels the highway most of its route. After about twenty minutes i heard the sirens of an ambulance going by and just shook my head.