We are NOT the Coast Gaurd! (longwinded)

[Justsomegirl]

Ok this is true and I hate to say it, this is my family. Grandpa goes for walk comes back early tells wife shotnes of breath arm hurting.. you know the clasic heart attck. Grandma calls my mom at work (mom is about an hour away), mom says CALL 911!! Grandma well I don't want to bother them... Now mom has to leave work early drive home to take Grandpa to hosptial. Um need I say mom broke every speed limit between work and home????

[protege]

Do cars actually float?

Yep. VW once had an ad with a Beetle floating Several years back, I got to see an entire junkyard's worth of heaps go floating downstream. At least they didn't end up in the Monongahela (but that would have been interesting...since there's supposedly a WWII-era B17 in there too!), but got caught by a railroad bridge's piers. I'm sure the crew that had to pull those cars out got overtime

[NiennasMaid]

The Mythbusters had a great episode dealing with myths about escaping from sinking cars. Best bet: get the damn door open as soon as you hit the water! Otherwise you have to wait for the car to fill with water so the pressure equalizes allowing you to open the door. If you have manual windows, you can roll those down, but power windows are likely to short out.

This is why I insist on driving cars with power locks and manual windows!

[Sliceanddice]

Hold on a sec. If you're relying on canned food and bottled water you're in trouble. me, I'd stalk up on cartridges for my water filter (0.2 micron). And I have wheat and quinoa that I could grow for next year's food.

Knowing to call 911, however, wouldn't be a useful skill in that circumstance.

i didnt say i was, though im in arizona, so i would need bottled water.

[dispatch]

I've heard of cars with epic seals that float fairly well, but my first thought if my car were floating down the street would be to get the windows or moon roof open and climb out.

As for the question of how useful people would be in an emergency, I realize that in an apacolyptic event that dialing 911 would not help much, but it's more a question of mentallity. if the city is flooding and your first thought is "OMG! I need to get my car towed!" and not "OMG! I need to get out of here before I drown!" then your chances of surviving in a situation where you have to fend for yourself are slim.

[Can I Help Your A$$?]

0118 999! 881 999, 119 725!.......3!

Oh, heck. Can't remember that one.

"Dear Sir stroke Madam. Fire, exclamation mark. Fire, exclamation mark. Help me, exclamation mark. 123 Carrendon Road. Looking forward to hearing from you. All the best, Maurice Moss."

[dispatch]

So I was just reminded of another not-quite-but-very-potentially emergency situation. I wasn't involved in it, but the conversation went something like this.

Agent (on his way to break): "Dude, someone just hit a bear!"

Dispatch: "is it dead?"

A: "not sure, I know they hit it from behind"

D: "I don't imagine bears take kindly to being rear ended, so if I were in that customer's shoes I'd want to be fairly certain it was dead or at least not able to rip my face off before exiting my vehicle."

One of the things I love about this job is all the unusual things you get to hear about!

[trunks2k]

0118 999! 881 999, 119 725!.......3!

Oh, heck. Can't remember that one.

"Dear Sir stroke Madam. Fire, exclamation mark. Fire, exclamation mark. Help me, exclamation mark. 123 Carrendon Road. Looking forward to hearing from you. All the best, Maurice Moss."

Looking forward to hearing from you!