But determining the location can be a challenge for not only the caller but the dispatcher. The morning of the casino collapse, which injured 13 and launched an OSHA investigation, multiple calls flooded Cincinnati Emergency Communications. One unidentified dispatcher had a harder time than others locating the casino.

911 transcript:

Dispatcher: “9-1-1, what’s the address of your emergency?”

Caller: “Casino, Horseshoe Casino, big floor fell down, we got eight guys down.”

Dispatcher: “Okay sir.”

Caller: “Downtown Cincinnati.”

Dispatcher: “Alright. What’s the location?”

Caller: “Downtown Cincinnati, Horseshoe Casino. We got eight guys down, pinned underneath beams and everything else, dude we need them bad.”

Dispatcher: “Okay, what’s the location where the Horseshoe Casino is sir?”

Caller: “It’s downtown. Wait a minute, what street are we on?”

Caller: “Gilbert. Gilbert Ave.

Dispatcher: “Uh-huh.”

Caller: “What else? What other road are we on? By the Justice Center.”

Dispatcher: “Okay. Gilbert and Court Street and what? I’m not sure sir.”

Cincinnati’s Emergency Communications Manager, Joel Estes, says he is not surprised the dispatcher did not know the exact location and does not expect employees to know all the cross streets at a major location like the casino.

“I don’t know it’s necessarily an issue of them not knowing where the casino is but it’s such a large area there’s so many ways to access that area,” says Estes.

Dispatchers do undergo an intense testing and training period ranging from six to nine months before fielding their first 911 call.

Despite a lack of staff, the communications center was fully staffed the morning of the collapse and were able to get Cincinnati Police and Fire to the scene as quickly as possible.

“The good thing for the dispatchers were they didn’t necessarily know what the address was but by them putting it out over the air right away where the casino was, we knew where it was and we can start heading that way,” says Cincinnati Fire District Chief Greg Potter.

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Tyrus Jenkins, 12, is credited with sounding the alarm at about 4:25 p.m., said his father, Tyson Jenkins.

All the building’s occupants, about a dozen in total, were evacuated safely. Tyrus was taken to Reid Hospital to be treated for smoke inhalation, but his father expected him to be OK.

Another child, 2-year-old Natalia Gipson, was treated at the scene for smoke and asthma, said her mother, Amber Qualls, but Natalia didn’t go to the hospital.

All the residents were displaced for the night and were provided shelter by the American Red Cross of Wayne and Union Counties.

The majority of the damage was confined to the Jenkins’ first-floor apartment, 117 S. 12th St., and caused about $30,000 in damages, said Richmond Fire Department Battalion Chief Bob O’Neil. Other apartments, 1171/2, 119 and 1191/2, received smoke damage.

O’Neil said that the fire started in the middle bedroom of the Jenkins apartment when something — possibly a pillow or a piece of clothing — fell on top of a baseboard heater and ignited.

“It just blazed up,” Tyson Jenkins said. “It’s gone, everything in there. It’s torched.”

Jenkins said he, his son and his daughter, Havana Jenkins, 3, had lived in the apartment awhile. Havana was away from home with her mother when the fire started.

Jenkins had just checked by phone on his son, who was in his bedroom doing his homework when he noticed smoke and fire coming from his sister’s bedroom.

“He’s a hero,” Tyson Jenkins said. “He saved everybody today. Thank God nobody got hurt.”

Amber Qualls said she left the house about 15 minutes before the fire began. Her mother, Karen Qualls, called her after escaping with Natalia from their second-floor residence.

“I was very scared,” Amber Qualls said.

She said her apartment, 1191/2, smelled really bad and a light socket in the bathroom was blackened, but everything else was OK.

Amber Qualls is concerned about the smoke in her apartment and her family’s health. She said it might be several days before her family can move back in because Natalia has asthma and her mother has seizures that can be triggered by strong odors like smoke.

O’Neil said that building owner Richard Anderson has other apartments that he might make available to the building’s occupants.

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“I’ve never experienced anything like this,” Kimberly Love told Channel 2′s Kerry Kavanaugh.

It was Christmas morning and the 10-pound dachshund had chewed on a present. A piece of the gift or wrapping lodged in the dog’s throat.

Begging for help, the woman called 911 at 9:46 a.m.

“I am so sorry to call you but I’ve got a dog that’s choking on a piece of Christmas present she opened. She’s choking to death,” the woman cried.

Public Safety Aide Stacey Sheldon told the caller to open the dog’s mouth to see if the obstruction was visible. It wasn’t and the tension escalated.

“The woman wanted us to send EMS but we don’t do that for animals,” Police Chief Corrigan O’Donohue said. “She was frantic. The dispatcher did a great job of walking her through the correct procedure of where to apply pressure to dislodge the object. Her instructions were similar to performing the Heimlich on a small child.”

The dispatcher told the woman to hold the dog in her arms, find the place where the dog’s ribs meet, and push in and up with force. The caller relayed the directions to a man.

To do the Heimlich maneuver, a rescuer stands behind the patient and performs abdominal thrusts at the bottom of the diaphragm. When the lungs compress, they exert pressure on anything in the trachea, which usually expels it.

It worked Christmas Day for the dog whose airway was blocked.

“She just coughed it up. I’m so happy,” the woman sobbed.

“I’m happy too,” Sheldon told her and then offered one more bit of advice. “Take her to the vet to make sure she didn’t hurt anything in her throat. Merry Christmas.”

The family had another reason to celebrate and the dispatcher moved on to the next call.

“The dispatcher did this and went back to her job,” O’Donohue said. “I just learned about it from a thank-you note from the family. I listened to the call and the dispatcher did such a great job. She was compassionate but firm and patient.”

Royal Oak police released the 911 tape Friday.

“Law enforcement can be a thankless job and that is truest for the dispatchers,” the chief said. “They generally get a lot of criticism and you don’t always hear about incidents like this.”

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State Police officials tell FOX 25 that a dispatcher out of Framingham answered a phone call on Jan. 8 from a 60-year-old man who was suffering an apparent asthma attack. The dispatcher had some difficulty hearing the man and after 55 seconds the call was disconnected.

The caller’s body was later found by loved ones who also found his cell phone nearby showing that he had called 911 for help.

Officials now say the dispatcher did not follow procedures when the call was disconnected. Those procedures include trying to make contact with the person who initiated the call and trying to find who terminated the call.

It was unclear on Friday whether or not the call was disconnected by the dispatcher or the caller. Officials say the dispatcher has been on the job for six years and was recently transferred to the Framingham headquarters from Troop C in central Massachusetts.

It was around 3:20 a.m. when the homeowner, who lives alone, called Victoria police about the sleeping intruder, according to deputy police chief John Ducker writing on the VicPD operations blog.

When the officers arrived to the Bay Street home, they noticed the man’s pants were down to his ankles. “Fortunately, in obvious preparation for the sleeping part of this sojourn, he was wearing pajamas underneath his other clothing,” Ducker wrote.

Not surprisingly, the officers noticed a strong smell of alcohol coming from the man.

Unsuccessful in waking the man, they began to look for ID when the man started and began to struggle. All three officers were needed to control the man and handcuff him, Ducker said.

The man continued to fight as he was dragged to the police van, biting one of the officers on the arm.

Police believe he entered the home through an unlocked door.

The man is facing charges of being unlawfully in a dwelling and assaulting a peace officer.

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KOUTS, IN — Chloe Salyer was put to the test Tuesday — and passed with flying colors.

Knowing her grandmother needed help, she called 911 — an impressive feat for a girl who also turned 4 years old on Tuesday.

Chloe’s grandmother and sitter, Sharon Salyer, has multiple sclerosis and uses a motorized scooter to get around. When she went into her bathroom Tuesday afternoon, she closed the door behind her and fell. The phone she carries with her on the scooter was out of reach.

“I called for Chloe and asked her to call 911,” Sharon Salyer said. “She handled it all by herself.”

Chloe said she told the 911 dispatcher that her grandmother fell and needed help. She then went to be close to her grandmother. The dispatcher called back, and kept Chloe on the line until help arrived.

“I told her she falled off the scooter and needed help,” Chloe said. “It was a girl (dispatcher) and she told me a stranger would come to my house.”

But to her surprise, the first responder was no stranger — it was her father.

Kevin Salyer is a Kouts firefighter and works in town. He heard the dispatch and happened to be the first to arrive. He was able to help his mother get up and moving again.

Sharon Salyer said her son and daughter-in-law Colleen had taught Chloe how to call for help.

It was a lesson learned.

“She handled it so well,” Sharon Salyer said.

60 year old Wanda Neff says she took too much prescription medication last Thursday afternoon right before calling her credit union, a phone call that quickly turned into a nightmare.

“As I was talking to her, I began not to feel right, and I began slurring my words, everything was starting to turn a dark blue,” says Neff.

On the other end of the phone, Solarity Credit Union employees Teresa Wood and Kelcy Young quickly realized Wanda was in trouble.

“The conversation is fading, every time she starts to speak, she fades,” says Wood.

“By the time I got her she was really incoherent, was having a hard time staying with the conversation,” says Young.

While Young keeps Wanda talking on the phone, Wood calls 9-1-1 for help, frustrated she can’t help more directly

“She had fallen trying to get to the door, so then that was worrisome, wondering would she make it, you’re on the other side, with no ability to help further,” says Wood.

The employees used caller I.D. to find Wanda’s address and tell paramedics where to go, and Wanda was able to open the door to let the paramedics in.

“I just held onto that phone, I don’t know if he pried it out of my hands or not, but it’s like that phone was my lifeline,” says Neff.

The credit union employees stayed on the phone long enough to make sure the paramedics were there to take care of their customer.

Wanda spent the night in the hospital, she’s doing better now, and is grateful to the tellers because she believes they saved her life.

“They were very professional, and I don’t have enough praise for them,” says Neff.

Wanda Neff believes without the employees’ help, she would have been alone until family members checked up on her the next day. She plans to thank them in person for their quick thinking.

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The homeowners and their neighbors said they could not get through to fire dispatchers.Neighbor Sam Wong saw the raging fire from her home across the street.

She said she immediately grabbed her phone and called 911.

“Got through to the operator and then was put through to the fire department and it said, all lines are busy, you know, stay on the line. And I was on the line for about three minutes just yelling at my phone,” Wong said.

She showed KITV4 the phone record of the 911 call she made at 5:24 a.m. It indicated the call lasted three minutes.

“I just ended up hanging up. Everybody was on their phones trying to get through and just… nothing,” Wong said.

The homeowners received a call from BMW through the BMW assist program at 5:26 a.m., notifying them that their car was on fire, according to Wong.

“She basically just asked them if they could call 911 and get the fire department out here because, you know, no one could get through,” Wong said.

The Honolulu Fire Department said there was no delay in its 911 system.

Capt. Terry Seelig said fire dispatch received 40 emergency calls about the fire in an 11-minute period.

Seelig said 15 calls came from landlines and 25 calls from cell phones.

Seelig said the first call came in at 5:25 a.m

But Wong and her neighbor’s cellphones indicate they both called 911 at 5:24 a.m.

Firefighters arrived on the scene at 5:33 a.m.

Seelig said that’s within HFD’s standard response time for the Lanikai area.

As Wong helped her neighbors store some personal items, she said she was still disturbed about her neighborhood’s inability to contact fire dispatchers.

“I’m kind of just more angry, the fact that it took so long to get ahold of the fire department. I’m not sure if that’s a continuing problem or what, but it’s pretty scary that something like this could happen in our neighborhood,” Wong said.

There are at least two call receivers at HFD’s dispatch center at all times, Seelig said.

It wasn’t immediately clear how many were on duty during Monday morning’s fire.

Her “911, do you have an emergency?” and repeated “hello” attempts reached no one.

Then the line went dead, reverting to a dial tone.

When the Toronto emergency operator tracked the caller’s number seconds later, he nonchalantly agreed it was a “pocket dial” on his hand-held device, verbally shrugging it off as no problem.

“I call you guys, like, every day, man,” he said in a YouTube video which highlights how people inadvertently misdial the emergency operator. “If you see my number, it’s an accident.”

But Toronto Police, at a briefing Monday, will warn that 219,000 mistaken 911 calls were received last year — wasting valuable time of operators poised to dispatch help to those in emergency situations.

The “enjoy your day” caller’s misdial, posted prior to the briefing by Acting Deputy Chief Jeff McGuire at Toronto Police headquarters — was one of 107,000 last year from hand-held devices stuffed into a pocket or purse instead of a holster, Const. Wendy Drummond said.

The operator urged the music man to be more careful with his hand-held.

There were also 116,000 calls from people who simply dialled the wrong number, Drummond said.

During the briefing to launch a “Lock it Before you Pocket” campaign, officers will explain “the seriousness of pocket dialling that places the public lifeline in jeopardy,” she said.

People will be urged — if they realize they have misdialled — not to hang up, but stay on until the operator is assured that someone in trouble.

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