Rise Up, Oh Heart, For There is Another Battle to Win

railyx:

mxaveryprincette:

totoro-totori:

friendly-neighborhood-patriarch:

mamalizmas:

dreamlightasafeather:

IF YOU NEED TO CALL 911 BUT ARE SCARED TO BECAUSE OF SOMEONE IN THE ROOM, dial and ask for a pepperoni pizza. They will ask if you know you’re calling 911. Say yes, and continue pretending you’re making an order. They’ll ask if there’s someone in the room.

You can ask how long it will take for the pizza to get to you, and they will tell you how far away a dispatcher is.

Here is an example video

Reblog to literally save a life

@totoro-totori

This is okay advice but not 100% accurate. Pepperoni pizza is not exactly a secret “code” among law enforcement.

We have gotten calls like these using other topics as a disguise. Do what you can safely to express to the dispatcher you need help. They cannot just hang up on you unless the issue has been cleared. If you absolutely cannot talk or are too scared, call and put the phone down or in your pocket so the dispatcher can hear. If possible try to at least say your location because they don’t always get correct information about your address when your call populates.

Dispatchers are trained to pick up on unusual situations and to go with them to get you help.

A’IGHT PARTNER OF A 911 DISPATCHER HERE: Pizza isn’t some secret code, but dispatchers are trained to pick up if someone is having to lie on the phone about who they’re calling. The most important thing is to give them an address. They can send cops to an address, and yes, ordering pizza is a good way to get away with giving your address away on the phone.

Important information to note: locating where you are isn’t like Hollywood portrays it. Dispatchers/police can’t just pinpoint your location within seconds. It’s a long process that isn’t always allowed (they literally have to go through your cell phone carrier company and sometimes the carrier says “no you can’t pinpoint this person”).

@railyx anything to add?

absolutely. (this will be a long post.)

most dispatch centers in the US, including the one i work at (boulder, colorado), have text-to-911 service these days. so even better than calling, just send a text to 911 (!!! IMPORTANT !!! include the address/location of where you are IN THE FIRST TEXT YOU SEND so that if you become unable to use your phone after that first text, we at least know where to send help). if the dispatch center in your area doesn’t have a text service, you will receive an automated text back saying something along the lines of “The 911 answering point in your area does not support text-to-911. Please call 911 instead.”

in that scenario, where you end up needing to call but still can’t make it known that you’re calling 911, there are plenty of things you can do to communicate that you need help depending on the exact circumstances.

if there is a person with you who is threatening to harm or kill you, and your call to 911 would only make things worse, try to call as discreetly as possible. with smartphones these days, you don’t even have to unlock your phone to call 911. simply get your phone to the unlock screen where you would enter your passcode and there should be a button at the bottom of your screen (sometimes at the top) that says “Emergency Call.” just hit that button and you’re good to go. also keep in mind that you can do this from phones that haven’t even been activated yet (just be aware however, that if you’re calling from a deactivated phone, and the call gets disconnected somehow, the dispatcher will NOT be able to call you back like we can with activated phones because there is no phone number attached to a deactivated phone).

from there, after you’ve pressed the emergency call button, if the person threatening you is yelling at you, simply keep an open line. your phone’s microphone is more powerful than you think, and can easily pick up someone in the same room yelling at you. if you’re able to do so without dramatically escalating the situation, yell back at them, and try to throw in some details about where you are. also try to throw in details of whether or not there are any weapons present (guns, knives, baseball bats, golf clubs, whatever).

the biggest thing we care about when taking a 911 call is the address/location. if you’re not in a building, give an intersection. if you don’t know the roads you’re on/near, give a landmark. a big building. a strangely colored building. a specific grouping of buildings together. we’re trained to be extremely familiar with the landmarks in our jurisdiction, and usually those landmarks will be in our computer system as well.

also, just be aware that if you call 911 with an open line and we don’t hear anything, we will hang up and call you back immediately, so make sure to answer the next call you get. this can actually help you out because it can be an excuse to step out of the room to take a phone call. if you can’t step out of the room to answer when we call you back, try to at least answer the call and give us something.

now, if you’re calling 911 in a situation where you can call us just fine but can’t talk because someone might hear you, try whispering. if you can’t even whisper, press a button on your phone. if we hear even something that tells us there’s a person on the other end, we will make every attempt to ask if that person can hear us before we hang up and attempt a callback. a common method of communicating with someone who can’t talk is to have the caller tap on the back of their phone, or press a number on the keypad. if this is the method of communication the dispatcher is using with you, they’ll usually use a “tap once for yes, twice for no” method. pressing buttons on your phone’s keypad makes an audible beep sound to the person on the other end, i.e. the dispatcher. once a “tap once for yes, twice for no” dialogue has been established, the dispatcher will ask you yes or no questions. just try to answer them to the best of your ability. again, the most important thing is an address/location. also, if it’s at all possible, call from a landline, not your cell phone. thought landlines were useless? think again. landlines are required to register to an address, so if there’s a landline available, use it, don’t use your cell phone. that way, if you can’t tell us where you are, it’s fine because we’ll already have an address.

i feel like i should make some kind of a master post about this stuff in the future.

(via windbladess)

anotherdayforchaosfay:

mamalizmas:

dreamlightasafeather:

IF YOU NEED TO CALL 911 BUT ARE SCARED TO BECAUSE OF SOMEONE IN THE ROOM, dial and ask for a pepperoni pizza. They will ask if you know you’re calling 911. Say yes, and continue pretending you’re making an order. They’ll ask if there’s someone in the room.

You can ask how long it will take for the pizza to get to you, and they will tell you how far away a dispatcher is.

Here is an example video

Reblog to literally save a life

I’ve done this.  I’m alive because of this. 

My flat-mate’s date for the night was almost as drunk as her.  She had passed out in her room and locked the door.  He refused to leave because he wanted to have sex.  He also demanded food because he was dealing with “whiskey dick”.  He didn’t like the lack of food in the fridge.  I called 911, did the stuff stated above, and he was getting PISSED about how long the “order” was taking.  He took my phone, demanded they “hurry the fuck up”.  Police arrived two minutes later, arrested him, and helped me file a police report.  Pressing charges wasn’t necessary because he had warrants on him from THREE different states for the very thing he planned to do to me.  Several months after this happened one of the officers informed me he was charged with two felonies because he crossed stay lines, and will be serving no less than 35 years in prison.  The officer ripped into my flat-mate about her bringing home complete strangers, while drunk, knowing full well this shit could happen. 

This was 14 years ago.  

Do the pizza order, do it as calmly as you can.  The dispatcher I spoke to said things like this:

“If he’s drunk say you want mushrooms.”  I said I want extra mushrooms.

“If he’s threatening you with sexual assault say you want onions.”  I said I want onions.

She went like this with different toppings and sauces for a description of him, like pineapple if he’s blonde, black olives if he’s tall, extra large if he’s tall, etc.

They’ve heard this sort of coded call before.  They’re trained for it.  They will understand what you’re saying.  Order the pizza.

(via ifeelbetterer)

jackorino:

baetrice-duke:

hashtagdion:

Just to expand on this post about calling 911 and asking for a pizza to secretly ask for help:

The post is based on a Super Bowl commercial, which itself was based on a Reddit post that’s never been verified as true. 

There is no actual pizza code with toppings and shit that dispatchers are trained in. If you come across someone who has heard of the commercial, they might understand. If you come across someone who’s never heard of it, they might think it’s a prank call and hang up on you.

A piece of actual advice to help you in this situation is to dial 911, then hang up without speaking, then turn the phone off. 911 will attempt to call you back, and when they’re unable to reach you, they’ll dispatch a unit to your location under the assumption that you need help and your call was interrupted. This will work 100% of the time, whereas the pizza trick will only work if the dispatcher has heard of the commercial/urban legend.

Also, the toppings thing was a complete and total fabrication and whoever wrote that should be ashamed of themselves, tbh.

If you’re on a cell phone, the dispatcher DOES NOT KNOW WHERE YOU ARE. You do need to find an excuse to give them your address, and ordering food is the best excuse. A 911 dispatcher will not just hang up if they think you might be prank calling them, they’ll ask you if there’s an emergency and you can say “yes,” and say your address and whatever else you need to say to keep your cover (like a pizza order). This doesn’t rely on any code, it relies on the fact that 911 dispatchers are trained to send a unit no matter what—as long as they know where to send it.

This is actually a huge problem with 911 dispatchers, they DO NOT KNOW YOUR LOCATION

It seems like a basic thing you would expect an emergency service to be able to figure out, but they DON’T, THEY CAN’T, UNLESS YOU TELL THEM

Here’s a video John Oliver and Last Week Tonight did on how 911 dispatch works

When I was in a car accident and had to get my mom to the hospital last year, it took 5 minutes just for me to confirm with the 911 dispatcher that they knew where I was, and even then I watched while they whizzed past the street where we were waiting. The most crucial thing first responders have to know in the case of an emergency is where you are. Don’t skip this information, please. 

(via lupinatic)