Emergency Numbers - Please Answer Them

Thulaganyo Jankey | Tuesday October 26, 2021 06:00

In the interest of accuracy, I will define mankind as people who reside approximately south of Zimbabwe and Zambia, north of South Africa, east of Namibia. As the 4IR slowly creeps in, I will be able to give you the right geographic position using the GPS system. I am a laggard and that means this could be a good 15 years from now. I am not proud of this.

Laggards are never proud of this fear of embracing new things. This sickness is the inability to answer the emergency line and the slow response to an emergency. The state of emergency just kept getting elongated longer than Pinocchio’s nose. Just when we thought it was over, it came again in another six-month spurt.

It was like a bad dream where you try to outrun someone and they just kept coming. Anyway, my submission today is not about the SOE. The citizenry wants to forget that and put it behind us - perhaps even run a ‘We Shall Forget’ campaign to well and truly exorcise the ghost of the SOE. Today I want to talk about emergency response numbers. Ever got into a spot of bother and tried to reach out through the phone to those who are supposedly tasked with helping you through your sticky situation? It would be no surprise if you are fed through the standard 50-rings-no-reply cycle. Those with four-leaf clover luck might well have gotten a response perhaps after trying 73 times.

But who has the time to try an emergency number that many times when a house is burning or an evil boyfriend is lurking in the shadows ready to pounce? Some years ago, I attended a football game at the National Stadium. I was late and most of the fans were inside the stadium. I noticed some thug trying to break into a car and called the police emergency number. Miraculously after about five days this time the phone was answered. The voice at the other end wanted to know whether there was a football match, which teams were playing and what the score was - three seemingly very important questions in an emergency. I am saying this with a straight.

After the question and answer session, I got the usual customary standard reply of ‘we have no cars right now’. One day I at least got an answer and the lady at the other end said ‘Sorry we cannot attend to your call right now because we are attending our own emergency’. Priorities clearly spelt out and Plan B was set in motion. My plan B involved enlisting the services of all the neighbourhood buckets to try and douse out the flames. A truly futile effort! One comedian once said in Jamaica there’s no hurry such that when you call the ambulance it takes its own sweet time and drives to the funeral. Not the accident scene nor medical emergency spot, mind you.

We probably have a situation worse than that of Jamaica. There’s a real chance here that the sluggish response that obtains here might mean the ambulance would arrive during one’s resurrection when Jesus has descended to choose his flock. Emergency services are increasingly under budget stresses like the famed Morupule B project which went through several contractors and plunged the country into further darkness.

So it is not completely far-fetched to call an emergency line and hear something like ‘Before we answer your call please listen to a message from one of our sponsors’. If you love pizza, I suggest you call the pizza joints and order a nice juicy one because chances are, it will arrive before the police, before the fire truck or even before the ambulance.

It is appreciated that it might be difficult to do so if you are at the receiving end of a GBV-infused boyfriend with issues but if you do succeed, the pizza delivery man might just be your knight in shiny armour.

A thought for the pizza outlets - why not employ hunks and train them in first aid and fire-fighting? At Pizza School speed is the most important module - even more important than flattening pizza dough. So you can be sure that within 30 minutes you can get help.

If Emergency was to go back to his mother after being fed through the local hewer, he’d be so battered and bruised that the mother would not recognise him. (For comments, feedback and insults email inkspills1969@gmail.com)