On Saturday, a few friends and I went to Boston Market in St. Louis Park to pick up some dinner about 5:00 p.m. As we were leaving, we spotted what looked like a small but growing billow of grey smoke coming from the neighborhood on the southwest side of highway 100. We wove around the streets until we found the source of the smoke, which was a rapidly growing house fire.

Since no emergency personnel were on the scene, I grabbed my trauma kit (I'm a trained first responder) and my cell phone and dashed over to see if I could help. By then, the flames were engulfing most of the house and threatening a neighbor's home.

I hit 911 on the cell phone and called in the situation and location. The 911 operator said, "oh, that's St. Louis Park" and immediately hung up on me. Luckily, police and fire crews came up just then so I didn't redial. I've wondered since, though, if St. Louis Park just happens to have a different 911 number than the rest of the state or if I was supposed to find a phone book and fumble around for some other number to call.

Fortunately, the family was out of the house and everyone was safe though understandably upset. Still, I can't help wondering about the possibilities if things had been different or if emergency crews hadn't shown up when they did. I've called 911 a number of times when rescuing at accidents in Minneapolis and in surrounding areas and never had anything like this happen before. Has anyone else had a similar experience with 911?

Michelle Gross
Bryn Mawr

TEMPORARY REMINDER:
1. Don't feed the troll! Ignore obvious flame-bait.
2. If you don't like what's being discussed here, don't complain - change the subject 
(Mpls-specific, of course.)

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