Let's Not Meet Again

Lizzie

I'm a supervisor of the 24/7 emergency hotline operated by a nonprofit, which focuses on assisting local women within our city limits who have just experienced domestic violence within the last 72hrs, and are now in emergency situations.

As the supervisor, I authorize all cabs, lock changes, and place people in shelter/hotels depending on what the Hotline workers determine someone might need. My two co-Supervisors and I are also the only people who are authorized to meet with people outside of the organization's regular walk-in business hours. We go to police stations, hospitals, and the like to meet with victims and provide them with temporary assistance. We (and our bosses higher up) are also the only people in the organization authorized to contact the police. If a client needs police or wants to file a report and wants us to do it, the Hotline worker they're speaking to has to go through a Supervisor and we have to dispatch 911 or the local police precinct directly.

Until I get dispatched, I work remotely from my home, because I typically work both nights and days during the same week. It allows me the opportunity to sleep at night (unless I'm called by a Hotline worker or dispatched), which is necessary for the nature of the work. Because of this, I have a satellite/internet phone in my apartment that can connect in to a Hotline worker's extension--they use it to phone me for help, when there's someone who pulls a "I need to speak to the manager" so I can connect in to the call, stuff like that. I also have my cell phone available, but staff typically only use it for emergencies or when I'm out on dispatch.

I've been here for about 5 years, and have never had anything too crazy happen. Sure, people are murdered, someone was assaulted with an air conditioner unit one time, there was the lady who was 28 and had 11 kids. But outside of things that are generally depressing, there's never been anything outside of this incident that's truly rattled me.

It was approximately noon on a Monday, but it was a holiday so the office was closed except for the Hotline (which works non-stop 365 days a year). I was walking home from 7-11 with gummy bears and a Slurpee when the Hotline called my cell phone.

It was Alex, a longtime worker who honestly probably old enough to be my mom, and she sounded panicked. She straight up told me to get the fuck home ASAP and dial in to her extension, that it was a legit emergency, she was going to keep the woman on the phone as long as she could.

If it was anyone else other than a Hotline veteran (or honestly Alex), I probably would have been like yeah whatever welcome to the job so what's going on here, but Alex is a bad ass boss lady with a neck tattoo who once almost got sexually assaulted but didn't because she kicked the dude in the nuts and asked him who he thought he was. Anyways, so I have never heard her sound like that before. I didn't ask any questions, I just freaked out, and I literally ran the two blocks home, and then up the stairs to my apartment. I picked up the phone, chugged some Slurpee so I wouldn't sound out horribly of breath, and dialed in to the extension Alex specified.

"Hello, my name is Nicole, I'm the Supervisor today. How can I help you?"

I just heard static and screaming on the other end of the line. Not like an angry client with a cheap phone on the subway, but someone being tortured type of screaming--and I had no idea at first what the static was. I was so taken aback I didn't even immediately process what exactly was going on, but I realized she was saying "You need to help" over and over in various wordings, and the static was wind. It was not windy outside, and this lady was breathing heavily, so she was either having a panic attack or she was running.

"Ok ma'am I'd like to help you. Where are you right now?" I said through my inner fear, which I had become a pro at hiding on the phone. I decided to also bypass the typical questions of do you feel safe, what's going on today, etc. Clearly some shit was going down and we needed to help this lady escape whatever and get to a police station.

I'm not even going to bullshit a quote because I was internally shitting myself so badly, but she said she was is Biloxi, Mississippi, running through a park she didn't know, nothing looked familiar, she had been in the back of a work van, and she didn't know what was happening or where she was. For reference, we're in New York City, and the phone she called from was a local area code.

I wasted no time conferencing in 911. Wasted. No. Time.

Alex was silent and I kept trying to talk to the woman while the phone rang on the call and we waited for the dispatcher.

I asked her what she was wearing, she said jeans and a black shirt and a pink coat, she said her name was Lizzie and she was 23. She didn't seem lucid though, and I asked her questions about what day it was and she was off by about a month. I asked her about landmarks, trying to figure out where she was. All she could tell me, again, was a park, and a highway, and the last street she remembers was named after some sort of a nut.

Pecan? Peanut? Macadamia? Alex jumped in and we started listing types of nuts and it got weird. Turns out she said it was Walnut.

We still had no idea where this was. We didn't know if it was NYC, Mississippi, we didn't know what was going on. She kept saying she needed us to come get her and she didn't have time. She said she was going to be murdered but when we tried to ask more about this like who/what/where/with what she didn't respond and just kept saying she needed help. I would have sent a cab for her in a heartbeat, but I had no idea where to send it.

The 911 dispatcher who answered flipped out, said she was brand new, PUT US ON HOLD, and said she was going to get somebody. COOL, THANKS BITCH. APPRECIATED.

Alex started trying with Google maps trying to find that place in or around Biloxi, and I went looking around the city for it. We clearly did not find it with that limited of information and in that short a time, the 911 dispatcher finally connected and tried to speak with her, they didn't get anywhere either. Alex ultimately told the woman from 911 to shut the fuck up because we didn't have time to get her up to speed and she was asking things we already had asked and there wasn't time to waste like that.

We heard one loud piercing scream, a thud that sounded oddly crunchy, and the line cut out.

I sat there, Alex sat there, the 911 dispatcher sat there. It was the definition of an awkward silence.

Long story short, we never found out what was going on, who it was, or where they were. Alex said before I got on the line Lizzie said she was being chased (or escaped from somewhere and thought someone was chasing her??) and she was running. The 911 dispatcher said they couldn't trace the phone because we're the ones who called, so the satellite it pinged off of as originating from was my apartment and she was definitely not in my neighborhood. When we connected with police, all they could tell us about the originating number was that it was a disposable phone and not registered to anyone.

I have a lot of experience on the Hotline, and I've learned to trust my gut about people and situations. I got bad, bad, vibes off of whatever this was and it was in no way a fake call. Our number isn't publicly listed, so you can't google it. You have to be referred to us by a core service agency such as a Child and Family Services, Department of Health, a hospital, the police, etc. So we rarely, rarely ever get prank calls and we've never gotten a sicko trying to fake something like this. The worst we've ever gotten since I've been here is homeless people sometimes trying to get shelter. Alex and I both swear whatever it was, it was real, and it still doesn't sit right with either of us.