[geeks] Now for something completely geek

[Dan Duncan]

On Mon, 21 Aug 2006, Charles Shannon Hendrix wrote:
> Anonymous calls to emergency and police personnel are protected by law
> and an operator or police line personnel following procedure will tell
> you that.  If you'll use your head, you'll see there are very good
> reasons for that.

Several years ago, a cow-orker of mine called 911 on his cellphone when a
customer fell into the oil-change pit at Jiffy Lube and was knocked unconscious.
Despite several warnings to stay out of the maintenance area, the guy was
determined to clean out his van while it was being worked on.  At the time he
fell, he was across the yellow line, standing on the railing, vacuuming out
the back of the van.  We all had a good laugh when he got back from lunch.
He didn't think much of it until a couple of months later when he was called
as a witness because the customer was suing Jiffy Lube.  You see, he had given
his name when he called 911 and they'd tracked him down.  (at the time, 911
around here didn't have the ability to record cell phone numbers)  What
followed was a series of court appearances because the plaintiff's attorney
kept asking for continuances.  Sometimes my cow-orker was notified in time
and didn't need to come in (even though he'd already arranged to take the day off)
and sometimes he wasn't.  It cost him several days of pay.  Eventually the judge
wouldn't give him any more continuances, the case went forward, and the jury
also decided the plaintiff was some kind of moron.

A week or so later, the plaintiff's attorney called my cow-orker to thank him
for his time (why the hell he was listed as a plaintiff's witness was beyond all
of us because he was pretty adamant that the guy got what he deserved) and
inform him that the guy had killed himself after the verdict.

He swore he would NEVER give his name to 911 again, EVER, and would use a
payphone to call them instead of his cellphone if there happened to be
one available.

-DanD
-- 
#  Dan Duncan (kd4igw)  dand at pcisys.net  http://pcisys.net/~dand
# The difference between the right word and a similar word is the difference
# between lightning and a lightning bug.   --Mark Twain