Though Alexander Graham Bell made the first telephone call in 1876 and patented his world - changing invention the same year , it claim another 61 years before anyone realise that some sort of an emergency reception organisation would be a utilitarian accession to the new phone connection .
The realization occur after a London house fervor in 1935 . At the clock time , the only direction to account a fire or medical parking brake was to dial “ 0 ” and narrate the operators that aid was take . The operators had no way of differentiating incoming calls . Emergency billet reckon exactly like everyday calls , so the operators just picked them up in the orderliness they came in . By the time they got to any of the calls reporting the 1935 fire , it was too tardy for five charwoman , who at long last perished in the glare .
To serve prevent such a tragedy from occur again , the U.K. implemented an pinch response system thattriggeredred lights and gimcrack trump at the call substance anytime someone was call using the numbers “ 9 - 9 - 9 . ” One of the first successful calls was made on July 8 , 1937 , when a Mrs. Beard of Hampstead reported that her husband was go after a would - be robber around the neighborhood . Police arrived pronto , and the thief was apprehend . Another1,335calls were pick up in the first week alone .
The U.S. did n’t install an emergency number—911 , of course — until February 1968 . The first 911 call was placed by Alabama Speaker of the House Rankin Fite , from the Haleyville , Alabama , City Hall , to U.S. Rep. Tom Bevill , at the city ’s police station . Fite ’s " emergency " was by all odds just a emblematic inaugural call : Not only did Bevillreportedlyanswer with a rather casual , “ Hello , " City Hall and the law post were actuallylocatedin the same building .
