That’s when Grace, just 4 years old, called 911.

“My brother’s not moving,” were her first words to the dispatcher Wednesday afternoon. Moments later, an ambulance was on its way.

Today, the Amityville Village preschooler is being hailed as a lifesaving hero by police, her parents and family friends.

“She was very calm, cool and collected,” police Sgt. John Sullivan, who took the 911 call, said Friday. “Time is of the essence when you have a child that’s not breathing.”

“Gracie amazes me on a daily basis,” said her mother, Alison Varley, 33, an attorney with the Nassau County attorney’s office.

A few months ago, Grace also showed her mettle.

Her little brother Myles accidentally stuck a lollipop stick in his mother’s ear, bursting an eardrum. While Varley was in pain, she said Grace soothed her tearful younger brother, saying, “Calm down, buddy. It’s OK.”

Then she turned to her mother and said, “Mommy, tell me what to do.”

The day Myles choked, the children were having dinner with their grandmother and baby-sitter — Christine Doran, 63.

“A chicken nugget was stuck in his throat,” Grace recalled. “I was scared. I thought he was never going to wake up.”

Doran said she carried the toddler to the sink, but he passed out. She tried the Heimlich maneuver and slapped his back. Nothing worked.

Hands shaking, Doran tried calling 911, but didn’t get through. Leaving the phone on the counter, the grandmother ran outside with the boy, screaming the names of neighbors.

Grace, left with baby brother Conor, 8 months, knew about 911 from her prekindergarten class. She got through on the first try, calmly answering Sullivan’s questions.

Officer John Andriella, 45, who happens to live next to the Varleys, was the first to arrive, about a minute later. Taking the boy from another neighbor, he put Myles upside down on his lap and slapped his back several times.

“He let out a cry, which to me was like music,” the officer said.

Myles, accompanied by his relieved grandmother, was taken by ambulance to Good Samaritan Hospital Medical Center in West Islip. He was released that night to his mother and father, real estate lawyer Myles Varley, 34.

Grace, who has a passion for princesses and all things pink, turned 5 on Friday. Myles turns 2 in six days. They’ll share a backyard bash Saturday — an event that was preplanned but is now suddenly poignant.

The hero worship, Grace figures, is just a bonus.

“I like it because it makes me feel very happy,” she said.

Read the story here.

MOBILE, AL — When a 9-1-1 operator says this: “Mobile County 9-1-1, what’s the location of your emergency?” What they expect to hear next is just that… an emergency. But far too often, it’s something like this actual call:

“9-1-1.”
“Hey, how you doin’?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Is this Mobile Water Works?”
“This is Mobile County 9-1-1″
“Oh, I’m sorry. Could you connect me to Mobile Water Works please?”

Or how about… this?

“Mobile County 9-1-1, what’s the location of your emergency?”
“Well, ma’am, it’s not quite an emergency. My brother’s power, he called me, and said the power’s been turned off, and I cannot find anywhere in the telephone book to call Alabama Power Company and speak to anybody. It’s always a robot. Is there a number or address where I can call them at in Mobile, Alabama?”

There probably is, but locating it is not the job of Mobile County’s 9-1-1 operators. Saving lives and property is.

“It’s a frequent problem that we have,” said Elaine Payne-White.

She’s been answering emergency calls at Mobile County’s 9-1-1 Center for nearly a dozen years. And every time she and her coworkers get a call on their screen, they have to assume it’s life or death.

Not exchanges like this:

“Mobile County 9-1-1.”
“Excuse me, ma’am, could you connect me to a phone number?”

And this:

“Mobile County 9-1-1, what is the nature of your emergency? Do you need police, fire or medical?”
“No. It’s my phone.”
“So you do not have an emergency?”
“Well, it’s my phone.That’s my emergency.”
“What do you mean, sir?”
“Only one phone is ringing when calls come in.”
“Ok, any kind of phone trouble you are having, you need to contact your phone company, ok?”

“We attempt to answer at least 95% of our calls in 15 seconds or less,” said 9-1-1 center director George Williams. “But what really gives us problems sometimes, are those calls we shouldn’t be getting.”

And like these operators, he, too, has heard everything.

“It’s not an emergency,” he said, smiling, “if you’re on Airport Blvd and you want to know the address of a good restaurant.”

Which brings us to this call:

And his voice may sound familiar to you.

A frantic call came into the Prince George’s County 911 Call Center late last week.

“My granddaughter drowned. She’s not responding please help.”

It was David McGowan who picked up the line.

When that blue light lights up saying you got a call it could be anything.

McGowan, only on the job for five months and still technically a trainee, was suddenly thrust into the middle of a life-and-death battle.

His biggest and perhaps only weapon was his steady baritone voice. And he used it to try to calm the desperate grandmother, as together they walked through the paces of performing CPR on the two-year-old girl.

Right by McGowan’s side at the 911 center, and ready to jump in if necessary, was Dave’s trainer, veteran 911 operator Ray Delano.

Delano never had to say a word.

“David has a great voice,” Delano says. “He has a great calming technique.”

A stong voice that many baseball fans know well.

“I was the stadium announcer for the Baltimore Orioles up until I started here,” McGowan says.

For 14 seasons, Dave McGowan was the voice of Camden Yards and the Baltimore Orioles. He retired from baseball in January and says he looked for a job where he could help people.

It looks like he found one, but he probably never thought he would actually save a life.

“She said the baby is breathing and I felt great and I said, ‘You know what? I made the right career choice,’” McGowan says.

Read the story here.

It’s a situation a local mother found herself in not too long ago and if it weren’t for her little girl, she might not be around to tell the story.

“I still get teared-up about it because she saved my life,” Kendra Brown of Holt said. “I honestly don’t know where I would be because the officers said I was having troubles breathing.”

Brown’s daughter, Emma, is a bundle of energy. Like most four-year-olds, play is a priority. She loves swings, slides and her mother’s cell phone.

But no one knew that very phone would save another thing she loves, her mom.

Last November, Kendra was home alone with Emma, when she collapsed with an adrenaline seizure. Emma didn’t see her mom fall but worried when she couldn’t find her.

“I looked inside, I looked everywhere,” Emma said.

She found Kendra lying facedown in the basement, so Emma took action. She dug into her mom’s pocket, grabbed her cell phone and dialed for help.

“I pressed red and then I pressed green,” she explained.

East Lansing dispatcher Rebecca Nelson was on the other side.

“She was very calm, she stayed calm through the whole thing,” Nelson said.

In her ten year career, Nelson says Emma is the youngest caller she’s ever had with a real emergency.

During the 11 minute call, the four-year-old asked for Meridian Township Officer Charles Glumb by name. Glumb is a family friend.

Nelson kept Emma talking, trying to figure out where she was and what was wrong with her mom.

“Can I talk to her,” Nelson asked in the 911 recording.

“She’s not waking up,” Emma responded. “I, I need some help here,” she added.

“Yup, I’m going to get you that help,” Nelson replied. “What’s your last name Emma?”

You can hear Emma following Nelson’s lead throughout the conversation. She helps first responders determine out her home address, but Emma’s worry for her mother was growing.

“She’s all alone and I’m scared,” Emma says on the 911 tape.

“It’s okay, don’t be scared Emma, I’m right here,” Nelson responded.

Emma starts to cry. “She fell on the floor, she’s not waking up,” Emma said.

Kendra was unconcious when firefighters, medics and Officer Glumb arrived, but soon she was breathing again, thanks in no small part to a pint-sized hero.

“Emma went upstairs to unlock the door, to let the police and fire in, Emma kept talking to the dispatcher until we got there,” Glumb said.

“She did a good job just staying on the phone and really more than anything that’s what we want, is to keep that open line for the updates as we use our other resources to find out where she’s at,” Nelson added.

Glumb was so impressed he nominated Emma for a citizen’s award for lifesaving.

“No one told her to do it, I felt she was a very brave, couragous girl,” he said.

Kendra has now heard the 911 call. She says it was tough to listen to, but she couldn’t be more proud.

“I heard her start to get scared and that just broke my heart,” Kendra said. “But I have an amazing, strong four-year-old.”

Kendra says she has talked with Emma about 911 and emergencies, but never imagined she’d need those skills so soon.

Dispatchers say Emma’s story is a great reminder about the importance of being prepared for emergencies. They want you to talk with your children about 911 early on, including what it’s for and how to use it.

They also recommend practicing those calls.

Nelson says you should make sure your children know your full name, first and last, as well as your complete address.

“God gave her to me for a reason,” Kendra said, of Emma.

In a tale come full circle, a mother who lives for her children, now owes her life to her child.

Read the story here.

Marian Andrzejewski, 74, called 911 after two men broke into his Ottawa apartment in October 2010, robbed him and punched him repeatedly.

But instead of getting help, Andrzejewski was scolded by the dispatcher when he struggled to communicate in broken English and ended up in handcuffs himself when police finally arrived.

In a recording of the 911 call, the dispatcher is heard telling Andrzejewski, who fled his native Poland after the Nazi occupation, that she could not understand him.

Nervous and fumbling for words, Andrzejewski says “yes” several times throughout the call.

At one point the dispatcher says: “Quit saying yes. Stop it . . . No, no more yes.”

When police officers arrived at the apartment building, the mother of one of Andrzejewski’s attackers approached them and accused the senior of sexually assaulting her.

“The police accepted their stories as to what happened and my client was charged with sexual assault and forcible confinement,” Andrzejewski’s lawyer James Harbic told CTV Ottawa.

Harbic said he doesn’t understand why police seemed to believe his client’s accuser, who has a criminal record.

Because he had no family or friends in town who could bail him out, Andrzejewski spent 75 days in jail. A jury recently acquitted him of all charges.

Ottawa police now say they have launched a full review of Andrzejewski’s 911 call.

“On initial review of that call, listening to it I do have some issues on the way that call was handled,” Supt. Mike Flanagan said.

“I thought the 911 operator was very inappropriate,” Harbic said. “Actually it was quite horrible.”

He also questioned why the dispatcher did not use a readily available translation service to make sense of his client’s frantic pleas for help.

Andrzejewski said he is relieved to be cleared of any wrongdoing and is glad to have his life back.

“I’m very happy,” he said.

In New York City in 2010, nearly 40 percent of 911 calls were so-called pocket dials (where your phone calls a number without you knowing it.)

In Spokane, it’s less but it’s still a problem. Officers say every time there’s an accidental call, it takes them about one minute and thirty seconds to process it.

“Since mobile phones were invented…our call volume alone has increased,” 911 Emergency Director Lorlee Mizell said.

Mizell says the number of abandoned calls make up 35 percent of all calls. That includes hang-ups, accidental calls from children playing with the phone, and pocket dials.

“It’s one of those things, that because the industry has started to see so many of them I wanted to know what we were doing,” Mizell said.

Mizell started keeping track of the numbers in October 2011. The latest numbers are for January, where the center received 12,321 total calls. 4,381 of those were accidental or abandoned. On average, that’s 143 each day.

“It’s significant because it takes up so much time for the call receiver,” Mizell said. “It also ties up the 911 lines if someone else is trying to call in.”

Their rules require operators to call the person back twice. If there’s no response, they send deputies.

“We go to those homes, we go check to make sure everything’s ok and unless we see something suspicious, some strange activity going on inside the residence, we’ll knock on the door. Make sure things look and appear ok,” Deputy Craig Chamberlin said.

Deputies are happy to respond, but if that means an extra thousand or so calls a month it can add up. If you do call 911 by accident, Mizell hopes you wait until it’s answered.

“I prefer they stay on the phone and talk to our call receiver and let them know it was a mistake,” she said.

She also says if you hang up and they call back, let them know what is going on so they don’t have to send deputies to your house.

Read the story here.

On April 16, Michele Ellis received a phone call that her brother John Lee Jr. had died in an apparent suicide. Lee lived in Texas and Ellis was having a hard time contacting anyone who could give her any more information on her brother’s death. Desperate for answers, Ellis called the Franklin County Sheriff’s Department for help.

Longtime dispatcher Bowles answered the call and quickly went to work finding out more information for Ellis. After getting the name of the town and the name of her brother, Bowles was soon able to track down the police department handling the case.

Within a few minutes, officers in Texas had contacted Ellis and were able to fill her in more on her brother’s death. The calls finally gave Ellis the unfortunate details she needed.

“She’s an excellent employee,” Ellis said to Bowles’ manager at the dispatch office on Friday. She handed Bowles a bouquet of flowers and was finally able to put a face to the voice that had helped her so much.

Bowles contacted Ellis again later in the evening of April 16 to make sure that Ellis had gotten the information. Bowles even gave her personal phone number in case Ellis needed it.

Read the story here.

Mireya Maria Alvarado, 65, was shot in the chest by robbers about 2:30 a.m. while working at her food truck on Colonial Drive west of Old Cheney Highway.

In a recording of the 911 call obtained Thursday by the Orlando Sentinel, the caller, 83-year-old Rene Martinez, can be heard screaming desperately, “Español! Una ambulancia, por favor,” at the operator, who couldn’t understand him and mistook him for a woman.

“Does anybody there speak English?” the dispatcher asked.

There’s no evidence from the 911 audio that the dispatcher transferred Martinez to a service that provides translators to callers who don’t speak English.

Once it’s clear that a caller speaks no English, dispatchers usually ask if an English speaker is available, said the Orange County Sheriff’s Office, whose 911 center answers the calls. If not, the call is transferred to the translation service.

Last year, dispatchers were able to get a translator on the 911 line in Orange County in less than six seconds on average, said a spokesman for Language Line Services, which contracts with Orange police and fire agencies.

On Sunday, 97 seconds passed from the start of the call before an English-speaking man got on the phone with the dispatcher after Martinez flagged him down.

Martinez can be heard seeking the man’s help: “Excuse me, you Spanish, English? Telephone, please,” Martinez pleaded to the unidentified man. Martinez tried in broken English to explain what had happened.

“Bah, bah, a lady, yah, shot a bullet, by a bullet,” Martinez said.

At that point, the dispatcher still was not aware that Alvarado had been shot, the 7 1/2-minute call indicates.

A sheriff’s spokesman said supervisors are evaluating the operator’s response and would modify procedures if necessary.

Last year, Orange County agencies used the service more than 12,000 times in 31 languages, Language Line spokesman Dale Hansman said. Nearly 86 percent of the calls were from Spanish speakers. Nearly 10 percent were from those who speak Haitian Creole.

There was an average delay of 5.4 seconds between the time the dispatcher contacted the translator and the translator came on the line to interpret the call, Hansman said. In most agencies, he said, a dispatcher can contact a translator with the touch of a preprogrammed telephone button.

On Sunday, the English-speaking caller, who evidently works at a nearby restaurant, told the 911 operator that he and other witnesses heard two pops and saw “two dudes” run away.

“This guy just ran up and said someone just got shot over at the food truck,” the unidentified man can be heard saying on the 911 audio.

“What is the food truck?” the dispatcher asked. “What is the address?”

A few seconds later, she asked, “What do you mean by a food truck?”

“It’s like a truck, you know, a truck that serves food out of it. Know what I mean?” the caller asked.

“Hello?” the man said.

“I’m still here,” the dispatcher said. “Can you go over there and see what’s going on?”

“Yeah, my boss is running over there right now. Hold on,” he said.

[Sounds of static]

“[Expletive.] Yeah this lady got, yeah, this lady got shot,” the man told the dispatcher about 2 minutes and 35 seconds into the call.

“OK, let me get the Fire Rescue on the line with me, OK?” the dispatcher replied.

An Orange County Sheriff’s Office spokesman said the initial call came into the 911 dispatch center at 2:34 a.m. A spokesman for Orange County Fire Rescue said his department’s dispatcher received the call at 2:36 a.m. and 16 seconds. Paramedics were dispatched 31 seconds later and arrived at 2:41 a.m.

The fire station is a few blocks away from the shooting.

It’s unknown whether a faster response would have saved Alvarado’s life. According to the 911 call, she was breathing but unconscious as she lay on the floor in a pool of blood. She was pronounced dead a short time later at Orlando Regional Medical Center.

Martinez, a neighbor of Alvarado who was helping her with the food truck, Arepera Solita, was shot in his right middle finger as they were closing for the night.

Martinez told the Orlando Sentinel this week that he opened the door of the truck and saw two men in their early 20s standing there, one armed with a handgun. Martinez said he pushed one of the men, and a shot rang out.

A bullet hit him in the finger and then struck Alvarado, who was standing behind him inside the truck, he said.

Detectives have not made any arrests in the case.

Read the story here.

Rose and Randy Lakey are due in O’Fallon, Missouri Municipal Court next month after they called 911 for their dog on Easter Sunday. But the Lakeys said their dog was not ordinary.

Oreo was a 4-year-old harlequin – a black-and-white spotted Great Dane. With a dog the size of Oreo, who stood 6’4″ on her hind legs and weighed 140 lbs., the Lakeys said they needed help.

“It was so fast and we were so upset, that all I could think of was to tell her we have to call for help,” Randy said.

“And she just collapsed and fell into the wall and down to the ground;  nothing, I mean it was just so quick,” Rose said.  “I tried to get my arms underneath her like you would if you were going to try to pick up a child.  When I went to try to get her up off the ground, I could barely get her off the ground at all.  When I did, her head and her legs and everything [were everywhere] … she was just out of it.”

They said an ambulance crew and police arrived within minutes of their 911 call.  They said one ambulance worker made it clear there was a problem.

“She got into the middle of the room and she seen Oreo and she threw her hands up and said, ‘It’s a dog, are you kidding me?’  Then she turned and walked away.  Then she started yelling out to the policeman, ‘It’s just a dog.’”

She said the other crew member brought oxygen for Oreo and helped load her into their car.

They got her to an emergency clinic, but it was too late.

The day after Oreo died, police brought a summons for filing a false 911 report. Police said Rose Lakey referred to both her dog and her daughters during the call.

“24 hours later, they give me a ticket, for asking for help,” Randy Lakey said.

“There was no sympathy at all.  There was no understanding at all.  He just acted like we planned all of this,” Rose said.

“You know, it was not intentional.  We didn’t mislead anybody.  We just needed help.  There’s nothing false about that,” Randy said.

Police said a 911 recording showed Rose Lakey clearly said her “daughter” needed help. She didn`t  deny it;  it could have happened given her hysterical state.  Still, she said she knows she said “dog” at the beginning of the call.  The Lakeys said they hope for a little more understanding from police.

They’ll likely face a fine, but they weren’t sure how much the fine would be.

Read the story here.

The boy’s neighbor told 10News he was playing with pine cones in front of the family’s Jamul home when his 4-year-old brother pointed to a snake and the toddler leaned over to look.Emergency crews said the fang marks were an inch and a half apart, which means it was a mature rattler that sunk its teeth into the little boy’s arm.

The first call came in at 3:16pm on Saturday.”He said he wasn’t going to wait though… that they were going to start heading for the hospital,” said one dispatcher.

“Okay, so I guess he’s taking care of it on his own?” said a second dispatcher.

As time passes, venom creeps into a snakebite victim’s system and the bite becomes more deadly. The family did not want to wait for help. Instead, they took the boy on what emergency crews called a “wild ride.”

The OnStar operator even tried to track them down using the GPS. The second dispatcher chimed in, saying, “Let them know we can’t help them unless they stop on the side of the road. We don’t chase cars.”

Still, several agencies were working to track the family down. Meanwhile, the SUV blew a tire as it pulled into Fire Station 36. Since the fire crew was out at another emergency, the father kept driving on the flat tire.

“I have a front flat. I can’t go much further,” the father said on the call.

“Okay sir, then what I need you to do is I need you to pull over, and I need you to give me the closest cross street that you’re at,” the dispatcher said.

The family’s SUV was near the intersection of state Route 94/Campo Road and Steele Canyon Road. The boy’s mother said about 20 minutes had passed since the bite.

They continued westbound on Campo Road until the car completely broke down in front of a restaurant. Dispatchers told the family to stay put.”Sir, you need to stop,” one dispatcher said. “You can’t keep moving him because we’re trying to get to him, and it’s preventing us from getting to him and getting him help.”

A San Miguel fire crew spotted the family’s car and rushed over. By then, the family had already flagged down another van for a ride. A separate crew was dispatched and pulled the van over, finally getting to the boy.

A neighbor told 10News the boy almost did not make it through Saturday night. However, the family has decided not to release any information about his condition, so that has not been confirmed.

Read the story here.