False Alarm

A few tours ago we had a rough first night. We were up almost the entire night. On day two some of my crew were enjoying what we call an "OSHA safety nap." While my engineer was snoring away our dispatch office received a 911 call. Mere seconds later our tones were going off.

While responding we were informed by dispatch that this was a medical alarm activation and there was no answer when the company tried to call the house. When we arrived at the home we knocked loudly on the door and announced ourselves (as if pulling up in a 40,000 pound vehicle with lights and siren going was hard to miss).

When there was no answer at the door we started looking in windows to see if we could see someone or find some way to get in to check on the occupant. At one of the windows my engineer found our supposed patient sitting in a chair. When he got her attention he asked her to come to the door. She didn't seem to right in the head. she refused to come to the door saying she didn't want to get up. My engineer answered that if we had to get up, she had to get up. I couldn't help but laugh.

Finally the patient decided it would be less effort to come to the door and deal with us than to try to ignore us. Boy was she grumpy. The 80 year old woman was just tired and didn't want to be bothered. She didn't know that she had accidentally activated her alarm and couldn't be troubled to answer her phone.