The first experiment with an emergency telephone number was in the United Kingdom in 1937. The experimental number was 999. In the United States, the push for the nationwide hotline number came as late as in 1957. In 1968, the number 911 was agreed upon as easy to remember.
Can you imagine your life without knowing you can always dial for help.
Shawn Grate
A woman pleaded for help to a 911 dispatcher while her abductor slept just feet away. The man was arrested and turned out to be a serial killer having killed five women. The caller dodged the bullet to become the sixth.
6-year-old girl witnessing her mother's death
Around 3:30 pm, December 25. A young girl calls to 911 to report a man is assaulting her mother. On the phone, she is witnessing the butchering of her mother with a knife by her boyfriend. Traumatized and tormented forever.
A women named Ruth murdered while on phone
While no one can find the original source of the call, it's believed to be real.
Killed by father for having a boyfriend
Amina and Sarah Said were killed by their father on New Years day 2008 for having boyfriends. Yaser Abdel Said, an Irving Texas cab driver, is alleged to have shot to death his two teenage daughters, Sarah, age 17, and Amina, age 18, to death. The FBI said the murder was an honor killing.
Columbine High School massacre
The audio is hard to understand and not very clear, but you can hear Valeen Schnurr (a student who survived) screaming for her life and Lauren Townsend being murdered.
Amber Tuccaro recording
20-year-old mother Amber Tuccaro vanished almost five years ago, after getting into an unknown man's vehicle in Nisku, near Edmonton. Just four days after this tape was released, horseback riders found Tuccaro's partial skeletal remains in a farmer's field in Leduc.
Police is asking for help: who is this man on the audio tape?
A final phone call during 9/11 while the tower collapses
The man on the phone is Kevin Cosgrove, an American business executive in the insurance industry, desperately seeking for help and support while being trapped in the South Tower/WTC 2 (105th floor).
Last phone call and final moments which ended with him crying out from inside the South Tower as it collapsed. May he rest in peace.