I was working the fuel desk at a TA Truckstop. (I was surprised by how much I enjoyed this job)
ANYWAY...I
was working the fuel desk when I noticed the new girl looking kind of
funny. I asked her what the problem was and she said she had just got
off the phone with a trucker and he had asked her to call 911 for him.
She said he told her he was parked in our parking lot (with about a 100
other truckers) and he was too sick to call them himself.
"Well, why are you just standing there? Why aren't you calling 911?"
She said, "I don't know if it is a prank call or not."
I
cussed to myself and told her to get on the phone and call 911. I told
her it wasn't our job to decide if something like that was a prank call
- let the police and ambulance sort it out - that was their job.
She
still just stood there looking at me. So I left my long line of
customers (we were in the middle of a rush) and called 911 myself. I
explained the phone call to them and they asked me how THEY were
supposed to find this trucker in the middle of all the other truckers. I
told them to just send the ambulance to our front door. By the time
they got there I would have someone locate the truck driver. (the clerk
did remember the company name of the trucker)
When I got off the
phone I called the maintenance guys and explained the problem to them.
They hustled on to the parking lot to locate the truck. I also got on
the phone to the trucking company and spoke to their dispatcher. They
knew exactly what truck I was talking about and although they didn't
know the location of the truck on the parking lot they did know the
license number of the truck.
That was all I needed. I relayed the
information to the maintenance men as well as getting on the intercom
that broadcasted across the entire property. So then I had all the
truckers looking for their fellow trucker.
He was located in
minutes. He was indeed too sick to call an ambulance but as promised I
directed the ambulance to the guys truck and they rushed him to the
hospital where he was operated on for a appendicitis or something along
that nature. We also secured the truck while the trucking company sent a
substitute driver to pick up the cargo and sent it on it's way.
That
trucker was in the hospital for over a week. But when he came out he
stopped by the fuel desk to thank us for saving his life and getting him
some help.
No comments:
Post a Comment