Michigan Officer Responds to 5-Year-Old’s Emergency 911 Call About McDonald’s

A McDonalds logo. Tolga Akmen/AFP/Getty Images

A police officer responded to a 5-year-old boy’s 911 call to bring him McDonald’s.

While his grandmother was sleeping last week, Izaiah Hall phoned emergency dispatchers.

Dispatcher Sara Kuberski handled his call. “Kent County 911. What’s your emergency?” she answered, according to ABC13.

“Can you bring me McDonald’s?” Izaiah asked.

“I’m sorry, what?” Kuberski responded.

“Can you bring me McDonald’s?” Izaiah asked again.

She told the boy that she couldn’t bring him any fast-food.

“We get a lot of people who are letting their kids play on their cell phones and a lot of them are deactivated, and parents don’t realize they can still call 911,” Kuberski told the ABC affiliate.

But Kuberski said she still had to send an officer to the boy’s location to see if everything was alright.

And Police officer Dan Patterson responded.

“I figured—hey, I’m driving past McDonald’s on my way there and I might as well get him something,” Patterson told ABC13.

READ MORE

• Husband of 911 Dispatcher Hears Emergency Call After She Is Killed in Crash
• 911 Calls Unanswered, Prompting Possible Public Safety Emergency

Nobody answered the door when he knocked. That’s when he knocked on the boy’s window.

“The first thing he said to me was ‘My grandma’s gonna be so mad. Can you please go away?” Patterson said.

The boy’s grandmother wasn’t angry and was happy that he learned that 911 is only for an emergency.

Making 911 Calls

Government website 911.gov notes that most people know that they should call 911 in an emergency, but many don’t know when they shouldn’t make the call

“The result is that many requests to 911 do not involve true emergencies, which overloads the 911 system with non-emergency calls,” says the website.

“Most people rarely face emergency situations and lack firsthand experience with 911. They may have unrealistic expectations about what will happen when they contact 911 for emergency assistance,” it adds.

Stock photo of police tape. Carl Ballou/Shutterstock

For example, it notes, if one’s child calls 911 and there is no emergency, parents shouldn’t hang up because it could make officials believe an emergency exists when there is none.

“Instead, simply explain to the call-taker what happened,” 911.gov says.

Wireless Calls

According to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC):

• Tell the emergency operator the location of the emergency right away.
• Provide the emergency operator with your wireless phone number, so if the call gets disconnected, the emergency operator can call you back.
• Remember that many emergency operators currently lack the technical capability to receive texts, photos, and videos.
• If you do not have a contract for service with a service provider and your emergency wireless call gets disconnected, you must call the emergency operator back because the operator will not have your telephone number and cannot contact you.
• Learn and use the designated number in your state for highway accidents or other non life-threatening incidents. States often reserve specific numbers for these types of incidents. For example, “#77” is the number used for highway accidents in Virginia.
• Consider creating a contact in your wireless phone’s memory with the name “ICE” (In Case of Emergency), which lists the phone numbers of people you want to have notified in an emergency.
• Lock your keypad when you’re not using your wireless phone to help prevent accidental calls to 911.