Police and fire departments nationwide are complaining about nuisance calls made to the 110 and 119 emergency lines — ranking from requests to rescue cats, chickens, pigeons and cows to exorcising ghosts.
One fire department reported a request to collect a dead chicken in front of the caller’s home during the peak of the avian influenza outbreak. When the caller was asked to confirm whether the chicken was actually dead, the caller said it was not and then hung up. However, the same person called again to say that the chicken was being chased by a dog and was certainly going to die.
In another incident, a fire department received a 119 call that involved students partying in a gazebo after a stone table in the gazebo toppled over, trapping a student’s foot.
When firefighters arrived on the scene, the gazebo was empty. However, the crew was later told by other students who witnessed the incident that the call had not been a prank, but the youth whose foot had been caught beneath the table had been able to extract it after taking off his shoes and he and his friends fled the area.
Another call reported a cow lying by the side of the road, near death. The fire department sent a heavy truck to remove the cow, but found that the caller had cut the cow open and had only wanted help in transporting the carcass.
Calls on the 119 line asking firefighters to chase away pigeons roosting on utility cables to prevent them being electrocuted ended with the caller threatening to sue the department if it did not “save the pigeons.”
The 110 hotline has seen police receiving calls about a bag of trash falling onto the highway, a NT$1 coin not being returned by a public phone and boxes containing urns with human ashes left on the roadside.
One caller asked police to help exorcise the spirits of a man and woman who were “possessing” a person, but was told that police training did not include supernatural abilities.
Other calls have included complaints about a noisy pet duck and requests that bus drivers be told to turn down their air-conditioning.
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