My First 911 Experience

I have heard allot of things about 911 Rescue Unit and I am kind of curious about it especially when I read from a newspaper that there are people who are really get sued in court for calling 911 as a kind of joke or something like that.

It was 01:23 in the morning.

At first I thought I was going to have a long and boring night or boring morning until I heard someone screamed. “Someone passed out, help!” I recognized Ate Cecilia’s voice, she is a Filipina and she is the casino cashier cage. I was on my usual auditing routine when I heard her. When I look around I saw a collapsed lady being helped by one of the casino players. The lady seemed already breathless. Ate Cecilia attended the lady and tried to help her. I was startled. The man shouted, “Call 911, call 911!” The MOD or Manager on Duty asked me to call 911 but I was just there in front of the phone standing still because I was not sure if I could do it right. It was so terrifying for me. So the MOD did the call. As soon as he hung up the phone, the two switch boards at the back of the front desk rang too loud. The sound made me more bothered. Then someone yelled again"Oh God, she is not breathing! She is not breathing anymore! CPR! We need someone who knows how to do the CPR! It was a wake up call to me, I hurriedly grabbed the microphone in the desk and I paged for a help, "Does anybody here knows how to do the CPR? We need one here in the front desk please." I paged like three times. Nobody answered the call. Nobody knew.

Anyways, in less than five minutes after the MOD called the 911 Rescue Team, policemen came. Yes, in less than 5 minutes. I was impressed! But they are not the 911 team yet. They gave the lady a first aid. In less than three minutes after the policemen arrived, here comes the 911 team. Their vehicle is kind of bigger compared to the typical ambulance we have back home. The lights in the vehicle were blinking and I don’t know if the siren was bleeping since I was inside the building. In other cases, when the caller couldn’t tell what the emergency is all about, usually, the fire truck would come along with the ambulance to make it sure that they could render help in any situation. The rescuers brought their medical paraphernalia with them, complete paraphernalia so to speak. At that moment, the sound at the back still ringing and I call the MOD’s attention. The sound started to hurt my eardrum already. I was wondering what happened to the switch boards. So I just concluded that when we call 911 everything is automatically alerted and perhaps that's why the policemen came right away. Well, maybe I am right or maybe I am wrong.

While the rescue team attended the victim, I chatted with Ate Cecilia about what really happened. And I found out that the victim was cashing out her winning tickets worth $2,200.00 more or less when she collapsed in front of the cashier’s booth. Hmm. I bet she was too happy that time or maybe she passed out because she skipped lunch or dinner or maybe both. If you are in the casino and you are gambling, you couldn’t notice the time that passes by because your concentration is on the slot machine. Well, again, maybe I am right or maybe I am wrong.

When the victim regained her consciousness, ate Cecilia asked her personal circumstances and we learned that she is one of the hotel guests, in fact, her husband is in their room already sleeping. At first she doesn’t want her husband to know but when she started throwing up and her blood pressure was too high from normal, she decided to inform her husband.

After a few minutes, her husband came and after a thorough discussion with the rescuers, she was taken to the hospital for a further treatment.

I salute the 911 for their quick response but ate Cecilia said that 911 would charge a huge amount of money afterwards especially if they brought the sick person to the hospital. And I reacted with wide eyes, whaaat? No kidding! Ate is not talking about $100.00 but she is talking about $1,000.00 or more. Whew, it’s good that the lady won $2,200.00 that night or else her husband would be soooo upset on the medical bills afterwards.

Well, there is nothing else that is free in this wide world except the Lord’s salvation. Agree or disagree?