911 - Alaska

The following is an edited version of a column that appeared in the Independence Examiner on January 17, 2004


Even up here 911 is a magic number
Conley McAnally
the Examiner

You have read about my friend and teaching partner George. George is a young man and very fit, however he is clumsy. Last year he fell off a snow-go while sitting in front of the post office and dislocated his shoulder. The local missionary/EMT set it. This year he was visited by the missionary again, not to save his soul but perhaps his life.

I was getting ready to go to my classroom one Saturday morning when the phone rang. It was George. He asked me if I could come over to his place sort of quickly. He lives in the trailer next to my semi subterranean dwelling so I was there in less than a minute. His back door was opened so I walked in and called out his name. I heard his voice coming from the kitchen and when I saw him he was holding a towel wrapped around his left hand which he held high above his head. He had cut his hand .

He said he wanted to look at the cut but when he looked at it the last time blood started spurting out all over the place and he wanted me around to make sure we could pack the wound if it had not coagulated yet. It was then I noticed that there was blood all over the sink, the floor, and kitchen table. As we started taking the towels off we soon realized that the cut had not clotted. Blood began running down his arm and spurting over my shoulder. We compressed the wound and stopped the bleeding.

I suggested we call Grant, the missionary but when I tried the number the call did not go through. We tried the clinic and the police station, still no luck. We figured something was wrong with the phone lines which was not abnormal.

Blood started running down George's arm so I abandoned my calling to apply pressure to the wound again and told George not to go into shock. He said he did not plan on it. He said he was more worried about the loss of blood.

I told him I thought he still had plenty.

George said this sounded like a 911. Neither of us knew if the service was provided here in Hooper Bay and if it did was it a local call or routed to Bethel and then back here, but I punched in the numbers anyway deciding not to speculate or discuss the matter further.

The 911 operator came on immediately, it was the Hooper Bay police dispatcher. Yes even Hooper Bay has 911 service. The call went something like this ­

Operator: Emergency

Me: This is Conley, George has just cut his hand and needs assistance immediately.

Operator: (She said something in Yup'ik that I could not understand.)

Me: What? Operator, are you sending help, we need it now.

Operator: How did he cut his hand.

Me: It does not matter how he cut his hand are you sending some one?

George yelled so the lady would hear that this was getting serious and we needed help now. In deed it was and we did, George's blood was now flowing down his arm.

Operator: I have contacted the officers already George (like she was talking to him and not me) they should me there any time now.

Me: Remember it is the trailer behind the old clinic next to the hallway leading to the maintenance shed behind my place, and come to the back door.

Operator: WILCO

No sooner had I gotten that out when a knock came at the door. "COME IN!" It was one of Hooper Bay's finest and right behind him came a second officer. They got out their equipment. One started to put gauze on the wound while the other contacted dispatch to get Grant over there. The dispatcher came pack and said that one of the officers would have to go get the missionary, his snow-go was being used by one of his kids. The situation was under control and the other officer relieved me from applying pressure to stop the bleeding.

Grant was there within five minutes and assisted in dressing the cut while making arraignments to get George transported to Bethel.

Now to wrap up some loose ends. George had just returned from his Christmas break that morning and he was trying to pry meat apart with a knife when it slipped and sliced the area between his thumb and index finger. The phone would not work because he had coded it before he left for Christmas and was to rattled to tell me how to decode the phone when I tried to make my calls for help, although he had done so when he called me.

The 911 system worked like a charm and the village police handled the situation in a very professional manner.

An officer and health aide accompanied George to Bethel by commercial carrier and they returned the next day no worse for the wear. There was no nerve damage and his hand would be fine in a day or two they told him. "Just don't strain the hand, watch for discoloration, and if there is pain take two aspirin and call us in the morning," the lady doctor in Bethel told him.

Just like being home.