Middletown emergency services responded to a 911 call on December 17 only to discover that the caller had exaggerated the situation for his own convenience.
A 54 year old Middletown man called 911 for help reporting that his 53 year old wife was conscious yet unresponsive. When the ambulance and fire department arrived the wife was found upstairs completely alert and smoking a cigarette.
When police arrived and interviewed the pair the true story came out. At first the woman denied all knowledge of what her husband had done, but finally admitted that she knew about the 911 call.
Her husband admitted that he had been worried that his wife had not taken her medication. He had been away for 10 days and on returned found his wife was being “chatty”. He said she commonly “babbles’” when she forgets to take her medication.
Since he had a court date in the morning and needed to sleep, police said that he thought it would be expedient to overstate the seriousness of his wife’s situation so that paramedics would come more quickly.
With emergency services always keen to reduce the numbers of non-emergency phone calls, education on when to call 911 is always necessary. A brochure printing company could be employed to inform the public when it is appropriate to call 911, as well as the penalties for making false claims.
