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Could your children dial 999 in an emergency?

BigG

BigG

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While we would always hope that in case of an emergency our friends and family would be perfectly able to dial 999 what about your kids (if you have them) or younger siblings/relatives?

We had a three year old dial 999 this week (unfortunately under tragic circumstances that I wont go into here) and that for me thinking about whether or not we should teach our kids to dial for the emergency services even from a very young age. While a three year old is about as young as some of my colleagues and I have ever heard of being able to dial 999 it seems children as young as two have made calls to emergency services and affectively saved someone's life as can be seen in this link

http://m.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leicestershire-26826092

While obviously no one would want to mention to young kids too much about drug use and the potential for serious harm, teaching pre-schools to dial for the emergency services if they see anything ammiss would seem like a valid piece of harm reduction advice.

Comments / opinions welcome :)
 
I accidentally dialed 911, instead of 901 to get through to my voice mail, a couple of months ago. so I was not expecting to hear 'what service I require' I was pissed as well which didn't help. 'who is this?' Then I took some stims and thought long and hard about how many people accidentally do that. o2 has 25million UK customers mind. I know it's only one digit out, but I took it upon myself to drought up a letter, and call o2, to let them know my (at the time ) strong feelings.
 
You mean 999 surely?....911 is the US...

But anyway did you know you can dial 112 from a mobile?. From what I remember reading its so people wouldn't press 999 by accident if the phone is in your pocket or something like that anyway :)
 
I don't know that 911 would necessarily work UK-wide.

Some STD code areas (Nottingham, Bristol, Reading) are on 7-digit phone numbers starting with 9. Numbers starting with 1 would never have been issued in the 6-digit days, 1 being reserved for operator services, so there would have been a whole block of numbers starting 91 suddenly available to issue. In fact, I'm sure I had a friend who lived in Nottingham and had a number beginning with 911. Unless up to 10 000 phone numbers have been recalled, 911 would not connect you to the emergency services in Nottingham (unless it timed out waiting for you to dial any more digits).

I've also seen Nottingham numbers beginning with an 8.
 
Actually I've checked and 911 DOES get you through to the emergency services. ..at least in the Newcastle area (NOTE..-I didn't find this out by simply ringing it as I wouldn't want to tie down a valuable emergency services operator with my own experiment).

So 999, 911 and 112 can all be uses.

And also in case anyone wasn't sure its 111 for non emergency medical based emergency services and 101 foe non emergency police enquiries.

It does still beg the question of whether pre-schools should be taught bow to call for emergency medical help. I think a balance needs to be struck between them knowing what to do in case of an emergency (drug based or otherwise) and not unnecessarily scaring them.

I must admit that before this lad week its not a subject I would have even considered.
 
Every mobile I've ever owned has allowed 999 calls even while locked. Ones with physical keypads accept 999 / 112 while locked. Touchscreen ones have an "emergency call" button on the lock screen.

As for location, the emergency services already have a pretty good idea of where a mobile phone is, because the cell tower location is sent over the D-channel and is displayed on the operator's console. They probably can't get at the onboard GPS, as if they could then so could any hacker. And that probably would be worse.
 
Both my 5 year old and 3 year know the emergency number, as well as their name and address. When we have been out at public events, I have made a point of taking them over to the police to say hi and remind them that the police are here to help if they ever need.
 
sirfoxey said:
Both my 5 year old and 3 year know the emergency number, as well as their name and address. When we have been out at public events, I have made a point of taking them over to the police to say hi and remind them that the police are here to help if they ever need.
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That's brilliant. Well done!!!

Someone told me this week that they had difficulty believing that a three year old was capable of calling for an ambulance which is what prompted me to dig out that story of a two year old phoning one. While I hope they never have to use it, its great that you're teaching your kids that
 
Both my kids - now adults knew how to call 999 and give out appropriate details, location, incident etc. They both did first aid courses at the Scouts too.

They also looked out for me well as they got bigger as which I'm so proud of them for doing. I'm a lucky mum x
 
Plus as well I think we forget just how technology savvy kids are today from a very young age. 20 years ago it would be unthinkable for your 3 year old to be able to use a mobile phone whereas today kids learn to operate all sorts of gadgets from such a young age. Technology holds no fear for them.
 
For years I had a recurring nightmare in which I would dial 999 in and emergency and it wouldn't work. Like I was too fucked to use the phone or it just wouldn't ring or something. It was such a stressful dream.

Rewind to two years ago, and the only time I've ever had to dial 999 in my life. I bumped into a friend in the park and he was having a psychotic episode. It was pretty dark.

Anyway, I had to dial 999 and it was one of the most stressful things I've ever done, because it was just like the fucking dream/nightmare, if not worse.

I spent about five minutes having to give information about myself. Address, name, date of birth. I was trying to tell the operator that somebody was tied up and gagged in a house, and their life was at risk and had been for at least a day. Let alone that it was the hottest day in years.

Instead I had to go through the rigmarole of answering far too many pointless questions about myself, then was left with the not-at-all-assuring 'assurance' that the police were on their way.

I tried calling back shortly thereafter, and was told that I was not allowed details about the case. I was sarcastically told that "we could probably assume it had been adequately dealt with" and I need not call back.

Four different friends repeatedly called the police and were incompetently fobbed off.

Then at some point the next day the tied up person managed to get the gag off and scream for a neighbour. At which point the police came and released him.

My recurring dream/nightmare was a total breeze compared to having to actually dial 999. In reality I had to deal with bumbling police/999 operators.
 
englandgz74 said:
Plus as well I think we forget just how technology savvy kids are today from a very young age. 20 years ago it would be unthinkable for your 3 year old to be able to use a mobile phone whereas today kids learn to operate all sorts of gadgets from such a young age. Technology holds no fear for them.
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Englandz do you think more of us should be considering doing First Aid courses?
 
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