Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend - 912, What's Your Emergency?

Episode Date: August 4, 2022

Conan talks to Taylor from Salt Lake City about working as a 911 operator and to walk through an emergency simulation.  Wanna get a chance to talk to Conan? Submit here: TeamCoco.com/CallConan

Conan O'Brien needs a fan. Want to talk to Conan? Visit teamcoco.com slash call Conan. Okay, let's get started. Hey there Taylor, me Conan and Sona. Hey, how's it going guys? Sona, you look lovely. Conan, you look alright.

You look good too. You know what, this is Conan O'Brien needs a fan. I'm reaching out to the community. Humanity in the world and immediately, Feces is landing on me. It's incredible. Absolutely incredible. Taylor, I'll look past that.

I won't. Oh, you won't? I really enjoyed it. I appreciate it. I really like Taylor. It was a sweet burn, Taylor. Taylor, you were backed up, we're watching you right now. You're backed up against a bare wall.

It looks like you're about to be executed. That's in my last words. They said, do you want one more phone call? And I said, no, just put me on with Conan. Yeah. That is one last phone call. How does that not count as a last phone call? No, I don't want to talk to anybody.

Get Conan on the phone. That's also an insult. Yeah. Would you like to speak to someone meaningful? No, get Conan. I want to talk to somebody that will make me feel good about dying. Yeah. Somebody that will make me cherish the sweet beyond.

Taylor, where are you coming to us from? I am coming to you guys from Salt Lake City, Utah. Oh, Salt Lake City, Utah. Okay. And tell us a little bit about yourself. What do you do? Well, I am a 911 operator. I've been an operator dispatcher for about two years now.

Really? Did we call you? Help. Yeah. It just occurred to me right now that someone may have called 911 and I mistakenly thought it was a fan. So someone here in my building is having a heart attack. No, it was me.

Yeah. I just went out. You went out and I thought, oh, good, another fan. Hey, how's it going? Wow, that's very cool that you're a 911. I have a million questions for you if you're a 911 operator. Okay. Shoot.

All right. Well, I'm just curious. First of all, what kind of train, do you train for that? How do you become a 911 operator? Yeah. So it's actually surprisingly entry level. I just walked in because I'm chubby now, but there was a time when I was a little more fit and I wanted to maybe be a firefighter.

And my dad said, I don't think you'd be a good firefighter because you're not very good in high pressure situations. And I said, screw you, dad. I'm going to go for the most high pressure job that I can think of now. So I walked into the 911 county office and I said, are you guys hiring? And they said, yeah. And you just have to take this test before you come in to see if you're, you know, if you can handle it and then there's three months of bootcamp in that office and for it to teach

you basically everything you need to know. And if you pass all that, then you're good to go. They train you a little more with shadowing a person. And then once you're cleared off on that, then you're on your own. So I was probably in training for about four or five months. Wow. First of all, there's a lot to unpack here, as my wife would say. Your father, your father told you, no, you shouldn't be a fireman because you're not

good in high pressure situations. That's pretty rough. And isn't that kind of his fault? Yeah. Oh. Well, that's two parts to it. Yeah. Well, you should have trained me, dad.

Yeah. Yeah. It's on you. But also, I mean, for, you know, there's one way to look at it, which is maybe he was saying that because he wanted to protect you because he was worried. And then there's another way, which is more in the dick category, you know, where like your dad's not being, you know, it's like, don't say that. Where do you think that falls?

Oh my God. I don't know. I mean, he was a volunteer fireman, so he kind of knew a little bit about how it all works. It sounds to me like he couldn't hack full time. Yeah. Oh. Yeah.

Again, on him. Yeah. But I think he did, he was looking out for me in the end. I think so too. Me too. Not me. Yeah. That's just what pushes me, though, when people say I can't do something, then I gun

for it. You know what, Taylor, I don't think you can rob a bank. Oh, all right, well, we'll see me on Dateline tomorrow. That's a really fast turnaround for a Dateline. What if you answered the 911 call of you robbing the bank? Yeah. That'd be fantastic. Hey, that's a great idea for a terrific bank robber, a bank robber who studies to be

a 911 operator, then is wired in, robs the bank, they call 911. He answers the call as he's robbing the bank and says, we're handling it right now. I'm going to get the cops there any moment now, but he doesn't. It's perfect. And that's how he gets away with it every time. And the movie's called 9-1-2. What? For reasons I don't know yet.

We'll clear this up and I hate to waste your time, Taylor, because you probably got, he's probably got someone on hold right now. There's a woman giving birth in a taxi cab and he's with us. So you go to this boot camp and they probably train you with lots of calls, but then there's your first call where you're on your own. That must have been very memorable. Actually it wasn't. I don't remember my first call by myself.

Really? I do remember the first call that I shadowed with was a, I didn't say or do anything. I was just listening to the person, but it was some guy who pulled into a church parking lots and wanted to take a nap and when he woke up, he just suddenly couldn't see, and so... Wait, that's the opposite of what a church should do to you. No, you know what actually, you know what is? That's God saying, there's no parking here. God did that.

He was being punished. Yeah. God, when you fall asleep in a church parking lot, God loses it. He's like, wait, you know, those are meant for people attending church. And then he takes your sight. He sounds like you're Nixon. Yeah. In a way, Nixon is my God, best comedy president ever.

So anyway, so, wow, that's an intense, did his sight ever come back? That's my next question is, do you get to find out what happened? If you're talking to someone on a 911 call and it's really touch and go, do you find out later on what happened? It's kind of 50-50. With him, I didn't, but I didn't follow up with the supervisor. We can sometimes find out what happens when we talk to our supervisor, then they talk to the hospital, police chief, fire chief or whatever and find out the whole story.

Sometimes we don't know. It's just either not recorded in the narrative of the call and the supervisor's too busy with something else or something else gets in the way. So it's 50-50. Sometimes we find out, sometimes we don't. How often do you get pranked? Do you get pranked often or are there phone calls that go nowhere? I mean, how, what percentage of the calls are just sort of a dead end for one reason

or another? Well, not a lot of people know this, but with smart phones nowadays that just have like, you know, you shake your phone because I don't know, you're angry that the Chicago Bears lost again. And then it's like, oh, did you mean to call 911 and it calls 911 for you? So like probably 75%, I would say of 911 calls are just bad dials or bad signals. Yeah, it's all, it's all someone going, God damn bears, but it could be someone suffering a bear attack.

What if it's someone who's being attacked by bears and you pick up the line in Chicago and you say, and they're like, ah, bears. And you say, look, this is sir, it's a butt dial. We're sorry, the bears lost. You shook your phone. He's like, no, I'm being attacked by bears. I bet that happens to, it might be 35% of what you think are butt dials. There's a lion in Detroit.

Yeah. Exactly. I'm being attacked by a Laker, what? You went too far. Yeah. Weird. A kid. Yeah.

Magic Johnson, he's lost his mind. He's after me. Oh, that's. I'm terrified of this pacer, what? Now you went too far. A 1970s car. Oh, you brought it back. I did.

I always win. So, wow, that's, that's fantastic. I'm curious. I've never called 911. That's not true actually. I did call 911 once when I was on my bike and I saw some sort of kids that seemed like they were in distress and they had taken a whole bunch of mushrooms and were freaking out and so I told them, just stay where you are.

I was in like a, you know, rural area on a dirt road and I said, guys, just hang out right here and they were not in a good place. So I called 911 and then waited there for, this is a couple of years ago, waited there for the police to show up. They must have thought they were hallucinating further when they saw you. Yes. No, no, they did. And I, as I heard, I stayed a little ways away from them because that's, I think even

me being present was freaking them out. I think that they thought I was a tall female bird. So anyway, the police show up and I go, yeah, they're over there. They're hanging out in that van. And the, the police went over there and I heard him say like, yeah, no, no, no, it, that is Conan. Yeah, it was Conan O'Brien. Yeah.

I think they, they thought that was part of the, the trip they were on. But he said, okay, if I try just right now, if I called you, could you be a 911, your 911 self and we could just run through it and see how it goes? Sure. Yeah. Okay. So 911, what's the city and address of the emergency? I'm in Los Angeles, California.

What was the second part? What's the address of the emergency? One, two, three, Bigelow Road. Okay. For verification, I need you to repeat the address, please. One, two, three, Bigelow Road, Los Angeles, California. Tell me what the problem is. I was eating this onion and something tasted real weird about it, but it's my last onion.

So I just kept chomping it. And now I can't feel my feet and I can't feel my hands. Okay. Are you, are you standing right now? I'm standing. I think I'm standing. I'm upright, but I can't feel my feet. I think I'm standing.

Are you feeling nauseous? No. I actually feel, I've never felt better. My stomach feels fantastic. I mean, I would. Have you been vomiting or puking blood? No more than usual. What's usual?

I usually vomit in the morning, twice in the afternoon and then violently for about an hour at night. So have you vomited since you last ate this onion? No, no. The onion really calmed me down. The onion's been, by the way, mostly terrific. My stool, I just want to mention my stool is a white gel and it has little colorful sparkles in it.

Are you under the influence of any drugs or alcohol? Well, that's interesting. No drugs. I don't do drugs, but I had six bottles of Pappy Van Winkold. Okay, is your door locked? Yes, it's triple locked. It's locked every which way that a door can be locked and I have a large bolt that I bought from an old French castle and I slid that across.

No one's getting through that fucking door. Just so that my paramedics can get to you, I need you to unlock all, how many did you say? Six locks, but then that big bolt and I got to get someone to help me, it's going to be half an hour to unlock this door. I'm very paranoid about villagers attacking me. Okay, by the way, the onion's terrific. Can I keep eating it?

It's fantastic. If you believe that's what's making you sick, then I would not keep eating the onion now. Okay. Man, you're a real voice of reason. This is terrific. I'm working on the door right now. Let's see, unlock, unlock, slide, bolt, slide. If it's too strenuous for you, then I don't want you to do it.

No, it's really not. It's not, no, I'm not feeling bad. My arms are just very, very weak from misuse and disuse. Let's see. There we go. Is there anybody there that can help you with the locks? My wife's here and my children are here, but they are not interested in me. Okay, have your wife help you with the door?

Have your wife help you with the door and if your children can, then I want you to send your children away. Fuck off, dads. Yeah, they have a restraining order against me. They are not allowed to approach me or I them. We live in separate parts of the house. They say that I'm an odd person and they don't want anything to do with me. Did you tell them how you misuse your arms?

Shut up, Quigley. That's my son, Quigley. Go eat an onion. I did. That's the problem. It worked. All right. Jesus.

Later. Okay, man, sorry for those radio show background people. The quality wasn't terrific, but you do what you can. Anyway, I'm starting to feel a lot better and I think, yep, the onion, I just shit it out. Now it's a clear gel. I feel much better and I think I'm okay. I don't think anyone needs to come.

I think I'm pretty good. I'm going to let my paramedics know that, but they're already on their way, so they may still come to check on you, okay? Well, I do have a gun and if they come in, I'm firing. That's my standard ground. What I love to do is call 911 and then start firing away the minutes on comes through the door. It's not a good gun.

It's an 1810 revolver and it keeps falling apart, but I'm just going to be blasting and a blast in if they come in the door. Okay, okay, Conan, for my paramedic safety and the officers that are now responding, their safety, I need you to put the gun away. Can you do that for me? How'd you know his name? That's right. I never said my name.

You're some kind of creep. Call 911. Yeah. Call real 911. Most likely because of the defecation and the vomiting that you've already had problems with. We probably already have a little bit of record on Mr. O'Brien and especially if he calls 911 and just starts blasting away, that's 100% on record.

I have put the gun away. I have a large smelting pot here and I just put the gun in and it's been melted down. It's just liquid metal now and some bullets that, oh man, they're exploding. That was a mistake. I should have taken the bullets out first, but we're good. We're fine now. I apologize for wasting your time. Okay, I need you to get everybody out of the house.

If there's explosions going on in the house, I need you to get your wife and children out of the house. Well, I was fibbing earlier. They left me a long time ago. I live alone and it's a small walk up. My wife took all my money and the divorce proceedings went very quickly and they gave her everything because they said, I'm a fucking moron, which is the first time a judge has ever said that.

But I sense that you're a great 911 operator and you really helped me out through this dark time. Do you think we'd ever meet up and have a beer? You know, this does happen where... Yeah, oh, I know. That's why I'm asking you. I'm asking you. This is still the 911. I'm still role-playing.

I'm sorry. Operator, can I... 911 operator, do you think you and I can ever meet up for some cheese steaks and a beer? I don't drink, but I'd love a cheese steak. Terrific. Sounds like a yes to me. Yeah, that is a yes. Wow.

Very unprofessional. That was a test and you failed. I've been shadowing you. I work for the government. I have a question, Taylor. It seems like 911 dispatch callers like yourself are always a little dispassionate. Is there a reason for that that you kind of... I always want them to be a little bit more like some empathy in their voice, like, I care, I care, I'll save you, but you guys

are always very distanced. There must be a reason. Yes. I actually hate people. I'm just kidding. Oh, jeez. I know. I love it.

It's really... And we get this a lot when I tell family and friends say, oh, I had to call 911 and the person was so rude. It's really just because it's time-sensitive and we kind of need to interrupt the person to get the right information, to get the address and things like that. And really, if somebody's just having a bowel movement like Conan, then if they're really in a lot of pain, then yeah, we might take some time to be more empathetic, but for more, I don't know, suicidal callers or things that are more high of importance, we'll definitely take the time to be like, listen, I understand you're going through a tough time.

I hear you. I know this is difficult, but it's really when it comes to the time-sensitive information, we need that right away, and then we can work on empathy later. And for Conan, I don't know, he sounded like a miserable human being, so I might have just let him die. Taylor, I admire your professionalism. I've had many a 911 operator tell me, just go die. Your time on this planet is hurting everyone.

I am curious to get serious for a second, but I imagine you do handle 911. On your 911 calls, I imagine you do handle people who are suicidal and probably specially trained to handle that, which is, it's a good thing. I mean, I would like to point out to people that are listening right now, we're having a lot of fun, but that's a real resource for people that are in pain. They should remember you can call 911 if you're really feeling that things are getting dark and then you're in a bad place and you might hurt yourself. If you should call 911, that's a great idea.

Absolutely. And we are trained professionals. We are 100% here for people to help them know that, for me personally, when somebody's having a suicidal episode or going through something traumatic, this is just my personal opinion, but I think that they don't necessarily want to kill themselves. They just want whatever they're going through to be over. They think that death is the answer to that. And it's not.

Life is worth living. Things get better. You can grow from hard experiences and keep going. And that's one of the things that I tell people when they call in is, you know, this is difficult, what you're going through. It's real and it's hard, but death is not what you want. You want to get through this. You want to get stronger.

You want to be happier. Yeah. I think that is a terrific message. And just everyone remember out there because there are a lot of people that struggle and this is very important to me. Remember that you can, if you're feeling anything like that, you can call 911 and get help and it's really worth doing that because what you're feeling is temporary and a permanent solution to a temporary problem is not the way to go.

So Taylor, this was great. It was really fun, really funny. And I do think what you do is extremely important. We had a lot of fun, but I think it's cool that you're out there helping people. Thank you. I've always, I think the reason I wanted to maybe get into fire duty initially is because I grew up around kind of superhero culture and the idea of doing good and stopping evil has always been what I wanted to do.

And so the fact that I get to do that from the comfort of a desk and not where fires are or bullets are flying is amazing. And I love it. It's my favorite job ever. That's so interesting. It's very cool. And we're very alike in some ways, but you pursued good and I have to say, I pursued evil.

And I love you. We're out there. We're going to be battling each other for the rest of our lives, but I'm glad to know that you're a worthy adversary, Taylor. And thank you. Thank you so much for calling in. That's very cool. Thank you.

Thank you guys for having me. All right. Take care, Taylor. Thanks guys. See ya. Bye. Thanks. Bye.

Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Coco, and Colin Anderson at Earwolf. Music by Jimmy Vivino. Supervising producer, Aaron Blair.

Associate talent producer, Jennifer Samples. Associate producers, Sean Doherty and Lisa Berm. Engineered by Will Bekton. Please rate, review, and subscribe to Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or wherever fine podcasts are downloaded. This has been a Teen Coco Production, in association with Stitcher.