The Nine-Year-Old Caller at 02:14
At 02:14 a nine-year-old boy calls from a cordless phone inside his apartment. 'My mommy won't wake up,' he says. In the background the EMD hears a dog barking and a younger child crying. The boy gives a street name but no number, and says 'I don't know' when asked for the apartment number. He is crying and repeatedly asks, 'Is Mommy going to die?' The screen shows only a wireless phase-two location, not a verified apartment. The boy says no adult is home and that he is alone with his little sister. He has never called 9-1-1 before, talks over the EMD, and offers details about the dog instead of answering questions.
1. The boy is crying and asking whether his mother will die. What information must the EMD get first, and in what order, and why?
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Order matters more than speed of clinical detail.
- Location first. Ask an open question - What is the address where you are right now? - rather than offering a guess such as Are you at 412 Maple?, which an upset child will simply agree to. Use the phase-two location as a cross-check, never as confirmation.
- Callback number. A cordless phone will not give one; ask him to read the number printed on the phone or the sticker on it if he can.
- Chief complaint and patient status - Is Mommy awake? Is she breathing? - then scene safety and age.
Why: an address with no resources attached saves nobody. Confirming a location after the fact costs minutes that cannot be recovered. The clinical picture can still be gathered while the response is being generated.
Handling the death question: acknowledge briefly and redirect - I'm getting help started. I need you to help me by answering my questions. Never promise she will be fine, and never say she has died.
2. How should the EMD question a nine-year-old so the answers can be relied on?
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Technique for a child caller:
- One question at a time, short and concrete. Two-part questions get one answer, usually to the wrong part.
- Avoid medical and abstract language. Not Is she responsive? but If you shake her shoulder, does she open her eyes or make a sound?
- Avoid leading questions and avoid asking Is she dead? That question produces either a guess or a refusal to answer.
- Use physical actions the child can perform: shake a shoulder, put a hand near her mouth, turn on a light, unlock the door, bring the little sister into the same room.
- Praise each answer briefly. Do not scold or correct the off-topic chatter; redirect once and move on.
- Do not tell the child to hang up to go check on his mother. Keep the line and keep him with the phone; have him put it on speaker if he can.
If he cannot answer a needed question, ask him to knock on a neighbor's door and bring an adult to the phone, but do not send him outside the building at night.
3. The boy genuinely does not know the apartment number. What should the EMD do to pin down the location without stalling the response?
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Do both at once: dispatch toward what is known and keep refining.
- Send the responders to the building/street now on the strength of the street name and phase-two data, and pass the refinement along as it comes. Do not hold the dispatch until the location is perfect.
- Ask questions with visible answers: What number is on the door? Read it to me. Is there a number on the mailbox? What colour is the building? Which floor are you on? What is across the street?
- Look for a name on the mailbox or a door tag the child can read.
- Ask whether a neighbour is home who could come to the phone - a neighbour is often the fastest source of an apartment number.
- Confirm it back to the caller in his own words: So it is the blue building on Oak Street, second floor, door on the left?
Rationale: a partial address plus a responding unit plus a callback number is safer than a complete-sounding address that is wrong. Refinement and response are parallel tasks, not sequential ones.