Hoax callers tend to be a sad, lonely and attention seeking bunch of individuals who somehow think that the emergency services are there to keep them entertained as they lead what must be incredibly boring and dull lives.
These individuals dial 999 with a wide range of different stories and seem to somehow ‘get off’ on the fact that they are getting some attention.
During my own time in the Met Police, I dealt with many hoax 999 calls – not only involving the police, but also involving the ambulance service, fire service and the RNLI (Tower Bridge).
Sometimes, these calls are made by people who have mental health problems and obviously anyone with a (diagnosed) mental health condition does not come under the category of individual alluded to in the opening paragraph of this article.
But the individuals who have nothing else better to do with their time than to dial 999 and waste the resources of the emergency services should be truly ashamed of themselves.
We saw a video this morning, shared on the Channel 4 Facebook page, of an ambulance crew who were told by their control room that they were responding to a 2-month-old child who was in cardiac arrest.
When you serve in the emergency services, then calls involving children are, without a shadow of a doubt, the hardest calls to deal with.
Most of the people who I know who have served in the emergency services and who are struggling to cope with post-traumatic stress, battle with the condition owing to the harrowing calls which they have dealt with involving children.
In the video (shared below) you can see how the medics in the ambulance are preparing themselves for a call that could be one of the worst type of calls which they are expected to deal with.
For me, when I watched the video, it sent shivers down my spine because I know what they must have been feeling as they raced towards what they thought was going to be a baby whose heart had potentially stopped beating.
As you will see from the video, the call turned out to be a ‘prank’ call – and the medics even reported that the caller became abusive to them.
How utterly shameful and how truly disgusting it is when someone takes it upon themself to put the emergency services through such an unnecessary ordeal.
Words cannot describe how ridiculous these types of individuals are.
They are a drain on resources and, in my own opinion, they should be banned from EVER being able to access the emergency services / NHS again.
If the individual who made this call, just happens to be reading this article, then I hope that you are ‘proud’ of yourself because of your shameful and unforgivable actions.
Any decent minded individual will know not to make hoax calls to the emergency services.
But I really do wish that when people do make such calls then they are found, prosecuted and sent to prison.
Some may say this is a bit of a harsh position to take.
But to those individuals who do feel that prison time for prank callers is too harsh, then just take the time to watch the video above and then get back to me.
Written by one of the many admins of Emergency Services Humour who is also a regular blogger in our fortnightly eMagazine ’S__ts & Giggles’ which you can sign up to by visiting our Facebook page and clicking on the ‘sign up’ button or by visiting: ShitsAndGiggles.Online
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Well, one day that person may genuinely need an ambulance and it won’t arrive in time…….delayed by a hoax call.