Called 911 this morning

[mkandolf]

Call 9-1-1 in Detroit and you may wait 5 hours. No lie. Probably could garauntee they won't get to you for at least 20 minutes. A good 70% of the equipment isn't in working condition.

 

[Roscoe East]

It's amazing how fast 911 calls get answered sometimes.

Operative word: "sometimes"

I've seen some wonderfully fast responses, two minutes or so. I've also seen 20 minute response times. (Fortunately, the guy who was injured & waiting 20 minutes for an ambulance was only slightly injured, nothing life-threatening.)

Just this past weekend I had to call 911 for a bike crash on a suburban road ~30 miles north of NYC. Response time was between 6 & 7 minutes. One of the guys with me was a doctor, and he said if you specify "possible loss of consiousness" when you make the 911 call, the EMTs will make an effort to arrive quicker. In a sense that's kind of depressing...so you mean if I don't mention "loss of consiousness" they're not going to make every effort to arrive as quickly as possible?!?!