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Edited on Wed Sep-29-04 01:17 AM by RoyGBiv
And don't get me started on the toll roads. We've got a freakin' TWO LANE toll turnpike running through the middle of nowhere that was supposedly going to shorten the route from certain parts of OK to Dallas. But, truckers won't use it because of how small it is -- and the fact it has been under construction constantly since it was first put down since the low-ball construction company didn't build it correctly. The thing doesn't even pay for itself.
I drove from OKC to VA awhile back. I paid more in tolls getting out of OKC than during the rest of the trip.
We have to charge that much. Otherwise everyone would leave. :-)
PS: The Operator Thing
I'm just venting a bit because this irritates me so. A whole family died in a house fire the other day. A woman, who was understandably hysterical, called 911, and the operator did what he was supposed to do and remained calm and tried to get information out of her. He also dispatched the fire trucks immediately. They didn't arrive in time.
Well, someone got ahold of the 911 tape, and the operator comes off rather badly because of his tone, but it was caused by the woman. First she just kept saying there was a fire on the porch. Okay, the operator thinks, send the trucks, but it's on the porch. Then, as she kept screaming, he realized something else was going on, so he kept asking her questions, forcefully, and she kept not answering them, so he got more forceful. He was never rude, but forceful, which is what he's supposed to be. At some point, she started choking, and that's when he realized she was in real trouble and so asked if the fire was *in* the house. She just kept choking and screaming, so he started yelling for her to get out of the house immediately.
The trucks arrived 7 minutes after the initial call, but they were all dead by then. People who heard the reply of the call, many of whom seemed not to realize that two operators work emergency calls, one on the phone, the other in contact with emergency crews, started blaming the operator for the deaths, saying he was rude, did't respond quickly, should have told her to get out sooner.
Anyway, I know no one is probably interested, but I feel better. That operator is probably agonizing over this, realizing he was talking to someone as they died, but there was simply nothing he could have done about it.
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