25 Of The Strangest Emergency Calls That Still Haunt 911 Operators

People call 911 for everything from grisly injuries to pranks and absurd situations—often when things are beyond their control. Recently, curiosity sparked a question about the creepiest and most harrowing emergencies 911 operators have dealt with. Redditors chimed in when asked, “911 operators of Reddit, what’s the strangest, most serious emergency you’ve heard?” The resulting thread highlighted just how varied and intense these calls can be. We’ve compiled a selection of their responses below. Caution: some stories may be disturbing to sensitive readers.

#1

Image source: SaturnOrchidDragon, bokodi Not me, but my cousin. She had this lady who would call regularly and often make up stories, most likely due to loneliness, but they still had to send someone out every time. So one day when they got a call from her they figured it would be another one of those calls. Cousin: "911, what's your emergency?" Her: "There's a lion in my living room." Cousin: "There's a lion in your living room? What's it doing?" Her: Pauses to ask it what it was doing "I don't know, just standing there. Can you send someone over?" Turned out there actually was a lion cub in her living room that had escaped from a circus or something nearby.

#2

Image source: Bletnard, Drazen Zigic Hmm One day I had walked in after getting a subway sandwich, my shift started at 1pm. Coworkers had recieved both 911 and normal calls from a wife and mother about their husband/son. He was just walking around and talking about taking all the children to heaven and circling the house for hours. There was a newborn, a toddler and I think a 5 year old. It was on a weekend and our chief advised that as long as he isn't acting dangerous or violent, just odd, then they can wait for a mental health warrant from the justice of the peace on monday. It's east texas and it's a good 20-30 minute drive going the speed limit to get anywhere in the county, and sometimes over an hour from one end to another, if you know where you are going. Well, this continues, up until about 11pm. The mother and wife are getting more and more antsy that he's been walking in circles all day and muttering the same thing, for hours. Then I get a call that begins with a loud bang, screaming and crying from the wife and her newborn. The husband had k****d his two sons and mother with a shotgun, and was coming for her. She cried that why didnt we help them, and to please save me and my babies. And then after about 10 seconds, another bang - the wife was k****d near instantly and the baby had 1-2 pellets into its head, and was making gurgling sounds before dying. After that, maybe a minute later, I heard another bang, the guy had put a slug into his shotgun and blasted the top portion of his face off - laid on the ground and drowned in his blood. and thats it.

#3

Image source: KeithCarter4897, andrewminsk123 Obligatory "not 911 operator." I'm the son of the caller. My dad called 911 late one night to report hitting a 6 foot tall chicken while driving and running off nto the ditch. He had just crashed his car and his voice was a bit shaky on the phone, so the operator asked him to repeat himself a couple of times and then promised to send someone to help. The first cop on scene got out of his car with a breathalyzer in hand. By the time he got to the back of my dad's car, he was laughing hysterically over his radio telling people that it wasn't a DUI call; my dad actually did hit a 6 foot tall chicken. And that's the story about the night my dad and all the local cops learned about emu farming.

#4

Image source: anon, pch.vector Obligatory not a 911 operator, but my soon to be mother in law: She got a call that a guy and his room mate were doing d***s. H****n. And the caller’s friend overdosed. So this absolute Mensa hooks up a couple wires to the inside of a toaster, turns the toaster on, and attaches the wires to his unconscious friend’s testicles. Honestly, not sure if it successfully electrocuted the unconscious guy, but the caller definitely seemed to think it would wake his friend up. My mother in law’s response? “Sir please don’t do that again”.

#5

Image source: jacktherambler, photoroyalty A friend of the family was (potentially still is) a paramedic with the helicopter service here. I'm not sure if this was when he was a ground based or in the helicopter but he enjoyed this story. He was called out to a head trauma incident and arrived to find a man sitting in his living room, acting very normal for a call like that. So he asked what was wrong and the man said "well, I've got this here," and turned to show a screwdriver buried to the hilt in his head. So the paramedic obviously said something along the lines of how that isn't good and the man said "nah, it's alright," and began turning the screwdriver. They told him to stop.

#6

Another funnier style call that we had was during the winter. It was extremely cold for where we live, (Alabama, in the single digits) We had been getting several calls about water pipes bursting. I took a 911 call right after taking 6-7 calls about pipes bursting. Naturally the woman sounds very disgruntled and said that her water just broke at 3:30 in the morning. Me, not thinking, asked her who her water was through. She responds with, "What the f**k are you asking me, my water just broke!". That is when the light bulb lit up, she was pregnant. baby was born healthy by the way. Image source: Calfee911

#7

Image source: dustydigital101, freepik Lots of calls from elderly people hallucinating because of a UTI. One woman had been following CPR instructions and when the crew arrived, she was doing (very gentle) chest compressions on her slightly confused, but very much alive, cat.

#8

I was a "0" operator, not 911. But, many small towns didnt have 911 so I got quite a few emergency calls. I got a call from a 13 year old girl once that had just gotten home from school. She couldnt find her father, but there was an ominous note there that she had read to me. I had police on the way and told her to wait outside for them. Rather, I heard her walking around her house, going from room to room, opening doors looking for him. After about a minute, she let out a blood curdling scream yelling "HES HERE! HES HERE! HES HERE!" He was hanging dead in the garage. Was a terrible call. I got a 15 minute break and had to get back on the board taking calls again. Its been almost 20 years and I can still hear her voice. Image source: RaChernobyl

#3

It was my call to 911 but something tells me they’ve relayed this story from their perspective a few times. I got hit from behind by one of my 220-pound Suffolk ram sheep. Never saw it coming. Knocked the snot out of me. Barely escaped as he was trying to finish me off. Once outside the fence, I went into shock as all the adrenaline drained. Had to call 911. Overheard the EMT in the ambulance trying to clarify to the E.R. that the patient they were transporting was NOT a victim of pedestrian vs truck. The hospital thought I’d been hit by a Dodge Ram pickup. Image source: enilnolarivogottogi

#9

Image source: neinta, wirestock "911 what's your emergency?" "There's a pig in the road. A big one." "Sir where are you?" "At the stoplight. It's the biggest pig I have ever seen. Get someone here now!" (One stoplight town, the bar is near the intersection.) "how big is the pig?" "About the size of a Volkswagen?" "How much have you had to drink?" "I'm not drunk! It's a giant pig the size of a small car! What is wrong with you people?" Officers show up to find a full grown hippo that had escaped from the local wild animal park. Big... pig. Eta: this was at 2:30 am when the bars close.

#10

I had a woman call in who was hiding in her closet and told me her ex-boyfriend was breaking into her house. She told me that they had a violent history. I got her information and told her to do what she needed to do to stay safe and leave the line open no matter what. While officers were enroute I heard him come in through a window and start beating her. He heard sirens coming and took off. Luckily, since she left the line open I was able to let the officers know when he took off and they caught him near the apartment. I think the worst part was the two minutes after he left, I sat there listening to the woman weeping and not being able to comfort her because she was too far away to hear me. Image source: anon

#11

Image source: CL_Adept, wirestock I answered the phone and gave my usual, "911, do you need Police, Fire, or Ambulance? " and the person on the other end just started screaming, "BEEEEEEEEEEEEES!! BEEEEEEES!!" I assumed that the bees were neither mugging him nor on fire, so I put it through to ambulance because what the even.

#12

Image source: Unizombiecorn, EyeEm Okay so my friend is a former 911 operator and she told me that she got this call from what sounded like an old man. Be was telling her that its been awhile and that she should come back over. Like "Hey its been so long. I miss you. Do you still remember the address? 123 Street, remember?" She assumed that he was just senile or something. Turns out he had someone in his house and he didn't want them to know he was calling 911 EDIT: Ok for clarification she did dispatch someone just in case the old man was incapable of taking care of himself bc she thought he was senile and that's how they found out.

#13

Image source: Austinwmyers, maria69 I responded to a man in his whitey tighties standing on the yellow lines in the middle of the road. Arrived on scene to find this to be true. The reason he was in the middle of the road was to practice his karate moves on cars. Dispatch was even having a hard time keeping from laughing.

#14

Image source: PancakeDictator, stefamerpik Not me, but my dad works in an emergency room, and one time he had to treat someone who had been attacked by an owl. The owl was unconscious on the side of the road, and she thought it was gone. Because she didn't want the children on the school bus to see the dead owl, she decided the best course of action would be to put the owl in the back of her car. Unfortunately the owl was alive. It woke up and attacked her.

#15

Was about to leave after a really calm night shift. Take one last call. This guy just ask for an ambulance for his mother like so many early in the morning. No panic or anything in his voice. So as always I ask him whats happening before I transfer him to the paramedics. And he just say "Well I think I just killed her but Im not sure if she's dead yet" and he put the phone on the side. 30sec pass no sound. He pick back up and tell me. Well I just made sure and stabbed her a few more times and put the knife in the sink. I'll be waiting outside bye. 9 years and still clear in my mind. Turn out he was mentally sick and her mother kept him home. Image source: Cryax77

#16

Posted this before, but the first call I took was from a blind elderly male. He called because he had found his son on the floor of a bedroom. He was not responding so I had him tilt his head back and listen for a breath...nothing. He said he was warm and he had talked with him less than twenty minutes prior so I guided him through CPR. Compressions only because of the circumstances. He lived in a rural part of our county and we were low on rigs so we did this for about twelve minutes before help arrived on scene. EMS goes inside and immediately ask for PD. This isn't unusual, sometimes loved ones can't or don't want to believe that it's too late so we go through the motions until a trained eye is there. PD gets there and asks for a detective. This is also not unusual for younger deaths. Two hours later and still there it peaks my curiosity. I called the first officer that arrived and found out that the poor man had been doing CPR on his now mostly headless son. He had been taking a nap and his son committed s*****e with a shotgun. It woke him up but not quick enough for it to register as a gunshot. When I had asked him to tilt his head back he did so by using his chin which was still there. I think it worked out for the best because he had support there when he learned the truth and it didn't make my job any tougher but it definitely made for an usual start to my dispatch career. Image source: Shaggs13

#17

I was also working the night John Lennon was killed. Call came in as a male shot ifo Dakota. When we learned from dispatch that it was John Lennon the whole floor (200+ people) just went silent. The Beatles were the first album I owned. For me, it was the end of something so ethereal I can't even name it - possibly the ideal that we might be able to change the world for the better. Image source: Mizcreant908

#18

As a 911 dispatcher, PLEASE READ THE FOLLOWING; This question is GREAT on Reddit, and even in a personal question with a close friend. But please, please, PLEASE.... do not ask this question in public, and especially at any social format. Many of us dispatchers have VERY difficult calls that can linger with us for years. It can be hard to talk about, and in front of a group / gathering, it can induce anxiety. Just bear that in mind. Thanks! Image source: BeardsuptheWazoo

#19

Oooh! I can participate! Hours later, but have a novella! So "strange", "serious", and actual "emergency" don't often overlap, but I may have a few that work. 1) Caller says her crazy roommate is losing her s**t, has a knife, and is screaming and trying to break stuff in the house. Caller is locked in her bedroom with a surprisingly calm attitude, noting that roommate is nuts and this isn't that unusual. Responders are pretty far out, so I stay on the phone. Suddenly, I hear loud banging, sounds of a verbal, tussling. I try to get my caller's attention again, while noting what I can overhear in the call notes. Caller gets back on the line and says the roommate had cut up her own arms/hands, busted in my caller's bedroom door, and smeared blood all over the caller. Then the roommate left to room to also call 911 so she could claim my caller had intentionally attacked her. 2) I was still training on phones. Call was already in for a check on welfare of an older woman who lived with her adult sons. The original caller said she hadn't heard from the mother and the sons were known to be aggressive and even violent. I answer a call from the landline phone at the target address and it's the mother, wondering where officers are because her sons are physically fighting. I remember being confused that she knew they were coming and wasn't the original caller. She wasn't forthcoming with information, gave very short answers to direct questions. When she asked if she could get off the phone, I asked her to just set the phone down with the line open and she obliged. After a bit, I hear the mother and a male voice arguing in the background, and mention of "blood". More arguing, then a male voice picks up the phone and says "I just killed my brother in self defense". He was surprisingly compliant and calmly told me what happened, with what weapon, where the weapon was now, his name, date of birth, etc. Still somewhat surprised I wasn't called into court for that one. 3) It's right at shift change and the incoming rotation is notorious for callouts and trudging in at the top of the hour. I'm standing up, just waiting for enough people to log in so I can leave. 911 is ringing, they have a few showing available, but not actually answering, so I sigh and pick up. The male caller says that his roof has collapsed and, that he has acid burns, and that it is all over the floor. My agency uses specific questioning protocols for EMS and fire calls, so I launch into the program. We are not allowed to deviate from questioning until we get aaaaalllll the way through, with a few very specific exceptions. The caller is agitated and uncooperative, keeps asking what's taking them so long, as many do - there's often an apparent misconception that no one starts moving until all our questions are answered, which is not the case. His responses to the questions elicit a full HAZMAT response from fire and eventually prompts me to also send the call to EMS and law enforcement. I had already sent the call to LEO early on because of the caller's evasiveness and just a general vibe. Protocol instructions have me tell the caller to leave his house, but he is refusing. He keeps saying the responders have to come to him. Meanwhile, all three agencies (law, fire, EMS) are all in the area, but they parked down the road because the guy says this place is structurally unsound and there are dangerous chemicals everywhere - they aren't sending their people into that environment to create more victims I'd they can help it. The Sgt has me connect the caller to his cell phone to try and convince the guy to come out, but the caller is still belligerent, insisting they come to them, and repeatedly hangs up on the officer. Finally, an officer basically says "f**k it" and approaches the guy's house. I'm finally off the phone, 20 minutes after I should have been done, and take my tired a*s home. When I look at the call the next day, the short of it is that the dude was tripping balls. The caller was obviously agitated and pacing in front of the home when the officer walked up. When he saw the officer, the caller immediately approached him, trying to remove his clothing to show the officer the non-existent "acid burns". The house was intact and had no structural damage. And that's why answering 911 2 minutes before you get to leave is [?the woooooOoooorssstttttt ?](http://iruntheinternet.com/lulzdump/images/gifs/parks-and-recreation-Jean-Ralphio-the-worst-worst-woooorst-1372637673p.gif?id=) More lighthearted// 4) Not my story, but a coworker - she had a male caller saying he was having s******l thoughts and wanted to jump into traffic. While coworker is trying to get more information from him as responders are on the way, he gets frustrated with her, stating that she's distracting him and keeps making him miss the passing cars. 5) We had almost daily occurrences of callers reporting a man standing naked on the side of the road, mooning passing cars around 5am near the county line. It was so far away from our deputies' normal down time spots, and consistently around shift change, so they consistently were unable to locate the man by the time someone got to the area. Dispatch nicknamed him the Brown-eyed Bandit. 6) Female caller very concerned about something suspicious, mentioning a body in large trunk or suitcase and an abandoned house, but was unable to clarify details and kept changing the story when i asked questions in attempt to get a better idea of wtf she was talking about. She was getting increasingly agitated as I tried to refocus her attention on statements she already made and asked clarifying questions. Finally, she gets so fed up with me asking questions that she says "can I talk to someone else, someone other than you? Is Detective Stabler there?" I'm fairly new at the time, and we work in a facility separate from the agencies we work with, so I don't know most of the officers by name. I give it serious thought for a second, thinking this may be someone on a different rotation. Then it hits me: "Are you talking about Detective Stabler from Law and Order??" *internally: ohhhhhhhhhh, this b***h is crazy.* 7) I don't remember the context, but I was asking for descriptive information on a caller's girlfriend of about a month. Me: what's her date of birth? Caller: I don't know, but I know she's a scorpio If you read all this, imaginary cookies for you! Please forgive errors, this kept me occupied for my last hour or so at work on my phone. Image source: TinkerMonkeybuns

#20

My stepdads a firefighter and he told this story to me and my sister about 5 years ago and it's stuck with me. As a firefighter he also attends car crashes to help cut people out, etc. The story he told us was that he was called to a lorry and car collision, which never end well really. In the car were three adults and one young girl about 6-7, if memory serves me right it was the family friend driving, with the others in the back with the little girl in the middle backseat. They crashed into a lorry and the car went under it, decapitating all the adults but missing the girl. She had to sit in that car, surrounded by the decapitated bodies of her family and friend for around four hours before they could get her out. He also told us about how when brains are splattered across the windscreen it reminds him of raw mince, I guess when you deal with that stuff a lot you grow kind of immune to it. EDIT: Should clarify, a 'lorry' is the British term for truck. Like a 8 wheeler truck for transporting things. Image source: toastedtoperfection

#21

It is not me: My friend had to take care of a couple doing their thing in a tree. They somehow got stuck and had to call for help getting down. When he and his team arrived it he saw his cousin, ofcourse all naked. Image source: DoodleDwarf

#22

It's kinda strange but stuff that sounds the most dramatic - people getting severely beaten during a call, or being shot at, admitting to a murder they committed in the last 30 seconds or even people killing themselves while they are on the phone to me... that doesn't bother me too much. But give me a distressed elderly person and I get a lump in my throat. Combine that with any one of the above and it turns into a bit of a s**t shift. We've all got our triggers and sometimes the least spectacular stuff can be the hardest to deal with. Image source: Quarterwit_85

#23

Image source: htaedfororreteht, EyeEm The very first emergency call I took by myself during training (trainer was hooked into my phone and could jump in whenever). I answered a 911 while my trainer was trying to grab a cup of coffee from the machine (long cords) and as soon as the phone connected there was, what sounded like, an explosion and people screaming all over the place. Scared the Jesus out of my trainer who sprinted back to the desk thinking I had just picked up some huge disaster or accident, takes over the call starts asking questions. And it turns out what we heard was just rushing water from a hot water heater that ruptured and was spewing water all over these two girls' apartment and they were freaking out not knowing what to do about it. Bonus story: Had a similar call a few year later, picked up to a bunch of people being loud, sounding panicked, talking about someone being locked in a car. Thought it was a child locked in a car (a very h**h priority call for my agency, due to being in Florida and a few recent deaths). So I put the call in as Urgent, while trying to get anyone on the phone to actually talk to me. But then I hear a door open, and someone in the background scream: "ITS OUT, THE CHICKEN IS FREE" *phone disconnects* *Florida*.

#24

Image source: 911ChickenMan, freepik We got a call from a woman having severe abdominal pains. Simple enough. We ask the normal questions, "are you feeling faint", "are you vomiting blood", stuff like that. Then we asked if it was traumatic or not. "Well..." She eventually tells us that she had a tampon stuck inside of her for more than 20 days, and she thinks that might be why she's hurting. --------------------------------- Bonus story: I heard someone else (on a different thread) that had a funny story. This guy and his wife were playing around with various vegetables and the guy gets a carrot lodged up his... you know. So they tried to remove it so they wouldn't have to call 911. She used a pair of burger tongs and grabbed onto something and pulled, but she was actually pulling at his intestines. Fun! If you get something stuck, just call 911. I've heard it all before. I don't care that you have a vegetable garden in there, I just want to get you help.

#25

Got a call a few years ago, lady's house was on fire, and her daughter was stuck in a back room. The flames were too much and too high, and she couldn't get through them to get to the girl. So I got to sit on the phone and listen to A) a little girl burn to death and B) the mom scream and cry as she watched. It was 5 years ago and the sounds still haunts me. Edit: I thought of a second one. Had a guy who called in reporting his son was unconscious and not breathing. He was as calm as could be about it, too. Said he left the room for just a second and when he came back he found him this way. But he wasn't panicked, wasn't worried, just talking like he was telling me about his day. Kept trying to get him to start CPR, and he treated it like a chore. Turns out, the kid started crying and the dad got frustrated and beat him to death. Kid was 2. Image source: FreakInThePen