Oh, God, that's horrible!
I have no gripes with police as people and we love our local force in my town BUT I can say 911 can be weird. And no, they don't automatically just come.
Here's what went down for us not long ago. Sorry it's so seriously long but it's an illustration of how something like this boy's tragedy can certainly happen, because no, when you call 911 it isn't necessarily like they show in the commercials, where as you call they're already dispatching or anything. But even if they do...like apparently in this story, they kept driving around but just didn't find them...and it's on someone else to keep calling and following up...but that can be impossible in the boy's case, and it's not something most people likely know, IMO. Usually - you think: Oh, emergency, I call 911, out they come and all is well. Not necessarily.
TLDR: 911 made me make multiple phone calls to various places before anyone actually came out, while MIL was on the floor having hit her head hard enough that she wasn't making sense and had a kind of "fading" voice. Good times. Ties into how even emergencies can be overlooked, unless there's an advocate in charge of his/her senses to keep pushing for an ambulance/fire dept. plus follow up each step of the way, which this boy was unable to do. I hope I have all my facts straight in the right order as some of this is a blur, I was panicked by the end of it all, but these are the basics.
My MIL fell in her bathroom a few months ago and she called me sounding dazed. She doesn't live very close (35-45 minutes and it can be longer when it's rush hour, this is Southern California) so I immediately called 911. She was saying from her phone that she couldn't get up and wouldn't be able to open her front door and I really don't have the strength to break down a door either so I figured, well...let me call the police/ambulance. LIKE RIGHT NOW. Because what if she was lying there hemorrhaging?
1. Called 911. Dispatcher picked up. Informed me that I would have to call my MIL's town instead.
2. After mentally WTF????ing this, I asked her VERY FAST BECAUSE WHAT IF MIL WAS DYING, you know?...how I would do that...could she just patch me through. (I didn't say the snark I've just typed, I was extremely polite...and extremely scared...and kind of shocked...)
3. Dispatcher kind of sighed wearily and said she'd get the number...I was about to hang up and just look it up online myself when she got back to me.
4. I thanked her. Called.
5. The dispatcher THERE informed me that I would have to call their fire department.
6. CAN YOU PATCH ME THROUGH??? I pretty much begged in a DAMNED PANIC by that damned time.
7. No no. I would have to call them myself. Here's the number...
8. I hang up, dial with shaking hands.
9. I. GET. AN ANSWERING MACHINE. I wish I were kidding. I'm not. By the way, we don't live in the wilds of Borneo or along the side of a mountain in Tibet. This was in a pretty busy, populated Southern California town.
10. Called their PD back. She said there was NOTHING SHE COULD DO because it was up to the fire department.
11. At this point I start crying helplessly. MIL may be dead at this point, who knows.
12. Dispatcher sighs (do they take a sighing test before being accepted for the job?), says okay...she'll call... and that I should call her back.
13. What??? I can't just hold or something? Nope. Impossible. I should call back...
14. I'm grabbing my coat. Gathering the kids up. To run out the door to get to MIL if nobody else freakin' can because by now I've wasted what, 7 or 8 minutes of possibly precious time...nightmare! I call husband. Yell that he should get to my MIL if he can, because he's on the road, home from work and probably 10 minutes closer than I am. But...HE'S STUCK IN TRAFFIC! Now he's panicking. So he calls my BIL who gets in his car. Should be there in...like 20 minutes...oh man. Still closer than me but it's not like someone can't die from a bleeding brain within 20 minutes.
15. I call back still crying. Dispatcher now acts like I have two heads or something and says that well, of course the fire department is there, knocking down the door. Like I should somehow know that...based on having just been told I would need to keep calling the fire department.
16. MIL lived. Amazingly. Bruised horribly for a few months.
After all this I asked my husband...when you call 911...aren't they supposed to, you know...help you? And know what to do?
He said he guessed not.
I shudder to think of ever having to call for help again. I think if it were me in trouble I'd just write a loving goodbye note on my phone and leave it for my kids and husband to find, and if physically possible while caught under my car seat, I would bend over and kiss my own ass goodbye.
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