Every day over half a million calls are received by the 911 emergency system, and the emergency operators are the first to respond to these calls. Depending on a caller’s situation, they will dispatch police officers, paramedics and fire fighters, keeping them well informed of the current situation as they make their way to the scene. As soon as these responders arrive at the scene, the emergency operators hang up, pick up the next call, and the cycle continues.

Due to the numerous daily calls, working as a 911 emergency operator can be very demanding, with long shifts answering calls from terrified and desperate individuals in need of help. One of the hardest and emotionally tasking things they have to deal with is the fact that they never get to know what happened to the callers, or how the emergency situation ended. As soon as help arrives they must hang up and answer the next call. This lack of closure comes with lots of stress, and it takes a strong person to handle the job.

Even though the job generally entails receiving distress calls, some have been very creepy and scary, and as a result, these 911 operators will probably never forget these haunting calls. We will discuss 15 of the creepiest calls 911 emergency operators have had to deal with in the past.

15. The Sound Of Petrified Victims Before A Car Crash

A 911 operator received a call from a terrified family that was travelling in a vehicle whose brakes had failed. They were travelling at 120mph and they could do nothing to stop the car. The call captured their last moments as they met with death, face to face. The 911 could only helplessly listen to their frantic screams, as the call ended abruptly, confirming the end of their journey through a horrific car crash. It claimed the lives of all four passengers. This accident actually happened before Toyota recalled over five million cars that was said to have had an anomaly with the accelerator pedal.

14. I just Drowned My Three Kids

Most of the time people that call 911 are victims or witnesses at the scene. However, in other cases the callers can be the ones carrying out an inconceivable crime. One such time was when Peter Tyler called 911 to explain why he pushed his three kids into a pond. He said he was dealing with pedophilia, but sadly, when he sought help and counsel, child protective services authorities wanted to take his kids away from him. Firmly believing that no one but him could only have custody of his kids, Peter threw them in a pond. Fortunately, two of his older children, 7 and 5 years old respectively, survived the ordeal, but his 3 year old sadly died.

13. Pet Chimpanzee Goes Berserk

A 911 call came in from a frantic lady yelling about someone attacking her friend. She proceeded to explain that it was her pet chimpanzee and not a human behind the attack. Scared, she begged the police to shoot the chimpanzee, which thankfully, according to FOX News, did not kill the victim but severely injured her face, eyes, scalp and hands, causing her to lose a lot of blood. What’s more shocking is that the ape went on attacking the woman, despite being stabbed several times by the owner. As a result, the police had no choice but to shoot down the once adorable pet chimp.

12. Killer Mother Stabs 3 Month-Old Baby

A woman called 911 but she gave over the phone to her son because she was in utter shock after what just happened. Her son, in turn, described how his cousin Sandra came in to the kitchen and stabbed her child who was only 3 months. He told the emergency operator that he was unable to go into the kitchen, because of the horrific and heartbreaking scene of a lifeless baby on the kitchen counter. Sandra had lost custody of her child after it was discovered that she had mental health issues, and it was not clear how she managed to gain access to the house, and visit her child. Later on, when the cops arrived at Sandra’s house, they found her asleep with blood all over her clothes.

11. Ruthless Hurricane That Trapped A Lady Trapped In Her Attic

When Hurricane Katrina hit an operator got a call from a woman who was trapped in her house. The operator tried to connect her to the fire department, but was unable to get the call through. The trapped lady then started panicking and screaming saying that the water was rising up fast into the attic, where she had sought refuge. The operator told her to search for something that she could use to break the vent, but unfortunately, it was too small and she couldn’t fit through. She stayed on the line with the operator who listened to her cry and pray, until a few moments later, when she tried keeping her head and phone above the water. Suddenly the phone went silent, and the operator never found out whether the woman survived her terrifying ordeal.

10. One Moment Watching A Movie, Next Moment Hanging In The Closet

A lady was watching a movie with her boyfriend when she fell asleep on the couch while the movie was still playing. When she woke up, she realized that her man wasn’t there, and upon searching for him, she was horrified to find his lifeless body hanging from their bed sheets in the closet. She immediately called 911, and was guided on how to cut him down, and perform CPR. After a moment, he began exhaling making long croaky noises, causing her to get frantic and excited that he was breathing. This celebration was unfortunately short-lived, since on arrival at the scene, police confirmed that he was dead. The long croaky sounds heard when he was exhaling was just a result of the remaining air in his lungs getting out.

9. Hunting Rifle Accidentally Kills Mom

An 18 year old boy called 911 hysterically requesting for an ambulance for his mother who had been shot. He told the operator that he was preparing his hunting rifle, an older model that did not have safety, and had a very light trigger. As soon as he removed it from the case he hit the bolt on the side of the table by accident, and this caused the gun to fire, hitting his mom, who was less than 30 feet away, in the stomach. Together with his father, he tried to stop the bleeding while he called 911. The operator recalls the boy’s mother saying it was ok, it was an accident, and that she loved them. Unfortunately, by the time the ambulance arrived, she was gone.

8. Vanished Like A Ghost

A young man called 911 saying that he had gone hiking with his friend 50 miles away from the nearest trailhead in the town. This was a fairly large town with lots of woods around, and people would go hike often. When the emergency operator asked what the problem was, he suddenly broke down, saying that one moment his friend was walking ahead of him, and the next he had vanished. The operator dispatched the sheriff to the area, and sadly, it is said, that up to date, none of the men have been found. Who knows where they vanished off too.

7. Terrified Mother Watches House Burn with Children Trapped Inside

A mother desperately called 911 reporting that her house was on fire, and that her two children were trapped inside. Although she and the rest of the family had managed to promptly and safely escape the house, the door locked behind them as they ran out, trapping the kids in the burning debris. Helplessly, the operator could hear them screaming and pounding on the locked door as they tried to get in to save the two trapped children. Thankfully, firefighters got to the scene on time, found their kids, with burns on their bodies, and rushed them to hospital.

6. Patient And Paramedic Die Minutes Apart

A 911 operator dispatched an ambulance to an elderly man who was not breathing, and the assigned paramedic confirmed that he had died. Just a few seconds later, the paramedic made another phone call, requesting for another ambulance. After that, the phone went dead, and the operator could not get through to him, assuming that probably a family member had fainted on hearing that the elderly man had died. He immediately dispatched the second ambulance, only to discover later on that it was actually the paramedic who had a heart attack in the ambulance, and died. His last words were actually the brief conversation he had with the operator when he requested for a second ambulance.

5. Man Calls 911 While Chopping Off His Legs

A man, who was paralyzed waist down, called 911 with a very bizarre emergency. He didn’t seem to be in his right mind as he told the operator that he was in the process of amputating his legs. He was half-way though chopping off his legs, using a Stanley knife and a blunt hack-saw, and had reached his thigh. He continued to explain that he had spread newspapers around the floor to prevent the carpet from getting soaked with blood. At some point, while still describing his situation on phone, he passed out because of the massive blood loss.

4. Accidental Death In Elderly Couple’s Home

An elderly woman, Sarah, called in to report her husband missing as she had not seen him in two days. They looked for him all over the small town, but could not find him. One week later, Sarah’s neighbors called 911 claiming that there was a strange smell coming from her house. When the police arrived, they discovered that the smell was coming from the attic, and as soon as they opened it, the lifeless body of Sarah’s husband fell out. It turned out that he had been putting away some things in the attic and his wife accidentally locked him there.

3. Girl Escapes Kidnappers

A girl who had been kidnapped called 911 after jumping out of a moving car. She was in an office park, but didn’t know the exact location. Unfortunately, the operator could not get a precise location through her cell phone, despite the need to urgently help the young woman. While on the phone with the operator she kept running and hiding behind bushes and dumpsters out of fear. Knowing that the kidnappers were looking for her, she narrated to the operator how they had beaten her, and would kill her if they found her. Eventually, she was able to find a business sign, which the operator used to find the address and dispatch police officers. Amazingly, their car was spotted, and the police pursued them on foot until they were caught.

2. Schizophrenic Attacks Himself

A 911 operator answered a call from a lady named Maggie, who said that her schizophrenic husband was having chest pains. When the ambulance got there, the man got a machete for no reason, and began chasing his wife as well as the paramedics with it. He then ran into the woods with the machete. While officers were searching for him, the operator got a call an hour later from a man lying down on a garage floor saying that he had been attacked, and he assumed that it was Maggie’s husband who had attacked him. It turned out that the caller was actually Maggie’s schizophrenic husband, and he had hit himself with the machete. Even worse, when officers arrived at the house, he began stabbing himself in his chest, forcing the police officers to taze and disarm him, before rushing him to hospital. Fortunately, he did not suffer from any cuts, thanks to the blunt blade.

1. Gruesome Murder

A 911 operator answered an emergency call at 7am, listening to a man yelling on the phone for help. After calming him down, he provided his address, and he kept screaming “my children! Oh God, no”! Even after dispatching the ambulance and the police, the operators were still having a difficult time trying to understand what had happened because he was too distressed to speak coherently. It turned out that the children’s aunt and uncle were babysitting the night before, when unexpectedly, the aunt’s ex-boyfriend stormed into the apartment, shooting them both, then proceeded to the kids’ rooms, and stabbed them both so that they wouldn’t identify him.

Sources: quora.com, lifehacker.com, mentalfloss.com