What was your funniest, or strangest call?

Lara911 · Sep 19, 2006

I did this job for a couple of years, as a part time overtime job...at the beginning, every evening, during at least one call I was absolutely sure that it was a joke of the guys at the radio...but I get used to it..it is just reality..I remember the one with the poor lady who called because she wanted to know what to do after she lost her husband's pen in her rectum...and the one with the men giving oral sex to his pregnant wife, he was worried to give the baby his cold...and the worst or the best...a men called the 3rd of january, worried for his wife, he told me she was asleep since the 31th in the night and never woke up since then, he tried to move her and everything but she wouldn't open her eyes, nothing...my first question was...does she breath? he told me..I don't know, I just call to see if it is normal after all she took during the party...I hesitated to ask, is she cold but I send the 911...

nurscee · Sep 22, 2006

I love it!

I know there is a thread in Gen discussion for funny things. But calls are a little different than what I used to encounter in the hospital. Some of these calls do truly sound like prank phone calls.

Here's one told to me that happened here:

A man called and wanted to know if "Icorificeeheartsonmymama",

nurse, "Hearts on your Mama?."

He answered "Yes" (running all his words together, he once again asked..."CanIuseheartsonmymama."

Upon further questioning it was discovered he wanted to know if he could use Hartz dog dip on his mother because she had fleas!

anticoagulationurse · Sep 27, 2006

I work in a geriatric clinic and sometimes the triage nurses are literally yelling into the phone because people cannot hear them. Once call I took was a sweet old guy who said, "I'm returning Michelle's call, I got a message." THere was not a Michelle that works there, so I asked him if Michelle left her phone number on the message. He said, "Yes, the phone number is 555.5555." I then asked him if he tried to call her back on that number, and he said, "No I was wondering if you knew why she is calling me?" I politely suggested he call Michelle back at the number she provided to find out.

Now, as triage nurses, I know we are expected to read people's minds and/or elicit useful information as though we are pulling a tooth. But this one made me chuckle.

Ruby Vee, BSN · Sep 28, 2006

we had an arrhythmia survellience line in our icu. people with a history of arrhythmias would call in, place a device over their chest and then the phone over the device and transmit their rhythm to our icu. then we would advise them or dispatch 911 if needed.

we had a series of obscene phone calls, always at night about 0200. the first time it happened, i was worried because the guy was quite obviously short of breath, and i couldn't understand what he was saying. later it became obvious why he was gasping for air, but at first it wasn't. it turned out to be a janitor in the building who thought he was calling the regular (unrecorded) icu line. prosecution was easy as we saved the tapes . . .