The first 911 emergency call in the country was made by a politician from the state of Alabama on this day in history, February 16, 1968.
The historic moment came four years after the shocking unreported murder of a New York City woman demonstrated to many Americans the need for a standard, easy-to-use system for calling for emergency assistance.
“Senator Rankin Fite completed the first 911 call made in the United States in Haleyville, Alabama,” writes NENA.org, the website of the National Emergency Number Association.
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“The telephone company providing service was then Alabama Telephone Company. This Haleyville 911 system is still in operation today.”
Before the advent of 911, people had to make a direct call to local emergency services, a nearby police station, or a fire station, most likely after flipping through the pages of the phone book, a large tome in the main metropolitan areas.
A studio photograph of Catherine “Kitty” Genovese, 28. She was not offered help when she was stabbed on Austin Street in Kew Gardens, Queens, in a crime that disgraced New York City. Her shock over his murder contributed to the creation of the 911 emergency telephone number system. (New York Daily News Archive via Getty Images)
They can also dial “0” to call the operator and ask to be connected to a local service.
It was an ineffective system. It was often a deadly system.
Kitty Genovese, 28, was attacked with a knife on the night of March 13, 1964. She bled to death on the stairs of her Queens apartment, the PBS documentary “Independent Lens” reported in 2017.
Thirty-eight people heard Kitty Genovese call for help; however, there was no system in place to report an emergency.
Police discovered that 38 people heard the woman call for help, The New York Times reported after the murder.
However, apparently none called emergency services, or the few who tried to call were unable to contact the police or received no response.
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There was no hotline or other system for people to report an emergency. The clamor was intense.
“While the story is a little more complex than that,” PBS reports, “it is true that the tragedy was one of the inspirations for the system we know today.”
Denver Police Dispatcher Raymond Rowland works at his station on Thursday, Nov. 1, 2018. The Denver Police Department is considering encrypting all of its radio channels, meaning the public will not be able to listen over scanners while field officers communicate with dispatchers at the 911 center. (Aaron Ontiveroz/The Denver Post via Getty Images)
The emergency telephone number 911 is widely used throughout North America and is synonymous with “distress” in both the United States and Canada.
It emerged and still exists as the primary and largely effective system for reaching emergency services in the United States without an official government mandate or federal law, although officials in Washington, D.C. helped foster the system.
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The National Fire Chiefs Association recommended a universal emergency number for reporting fires in 1957.
In 1967, a presidential commission endorsed the concept of a universal number for all emergency situations.
The National Fire Chiefs Association recommended a universal emergency number for reporting fires in 1957.
Finally, “in November 1967, the FCC met with the American Telephone and Telegraph Company (AT&T) to find a way to establish a universal emergency number that could be implemented quickly,” NENA.org writes.
Flames consume a home near the Old Oregon Trail as the Fawn Fire burns north of Redding in Shasta County, California, on Thursday, September 23, 2021. (AP Photo/Ethan Swope)
“In 1968, AT&T announced that it would establish the digits 911 (nine-one-one) as an emergency code throughout the United States.”
The 911 combination was chosen for a variety of reasons, two of the most notable.
In 1987, only half of Americans had access to emergency services by calling 911.
First, it was easy to remember and quick to call, even on rotary phones of the time.
Second, the combination 911 had not been used as an area code, service code, or local exchange.
In other words, the 911 phone number was exclusive to emergency services and has been ever since.
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The proliferation of 911 across the country is a fairly recent phenomenon, surprisingly recent to many observers.
According to NENA, only half of Americans had access to emergency services by calling 911 in 1987.
The murder of Kitty Genovese in 1964, which helped spur the creation of a 911 emergency telephone number system, was still front-page news in New York City 31 years later. (NY Daily News via Getty Images)
“At the end of the 20th century, nearly 93% of the United States population was covered by some type of 9-1-1 service. Ninety-five percent of that coverage was enhanced 911. Approximately 96% of the area geographic area of the US is covered by some type of 911.”
The world's first emergency phone number was 999, introduced in London in 1937, according to World Population Review.
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Los Angeles established an emergency line, 116, in 1946, decades before the universal number 911 was established.
There are now three-digit emergency phone numbers in most countries around the world.
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