I’m not a search and rescue dispatcher, but I’m really close to someone who is, and she told me some truly horrible stories

I met my girlfriend, Sarah, at a bar nearly a year ago. We’ve been dating pretty seriously since then. She seems to really love her job, and I can’t blame her. It’s a lot less stressful, and a hell of a lot more lucrative, to be a dispatcher for some 1%er’s search and rescue firm than it was for me to be a cook at some shithole diner. It’s funny to think about, but the last time I spoke to her, it made me remember a story one of my old co-workers told me.<br><br>When I was a line cook, one of my co-workers was this guy, Tony. Tony was a line cook at our restaurant, but he wasn’t there for the money. Tony was working his way through culinary school, just for the fun of it. He was probably the only person I knew who was as passionate about cooking as I was. The catch is that this guy was probably older than my parents. He was a retired cop who spent most of his time cooking for his family, and wanted to learn more about “real” cooking. All things considered, the guy was pretty ok in my book.<br><br>One night I was prepping for opening, and Tony was running some sauces. All of a sudden, he just started laughing his head off. I assumed he had just watched something dumb on his phone, but he stopped and said, “You know, if you think this job is bad, you should have been a cop.”<br><br>“Why’s that?”<br><br>“I know this dispatcher, Jenny. She did it for decades. She told me a story about this call she got, and no matter how many times she told me about it, I never got tired of hearing it,” he said, stirring the beurre blanc.<br><br>“Tell me.”<br><br>“I can’t do it justice, but I’ll try. Jenny was a rookie, and wasn’t used to getting calls for search and rescue. She had only been doing it a few months, and she thought she was ready. She was working one night, and she got a call from some rich guy,” He stopped again, to plate a few appetizers that were about to leave.<br><br>“A rich guy, huh?”<br><br>“Yeah, a rich guy. He must have made triple what I made as a cop, and he was only in his 30s. He called up Jenny from his rest stop up the mountain. This guy was worried sick about his kid.”<br><br>“Why was he worried?”<br><br>“His kid was missing. They were driving through the mountains, and the kid had thrown his tablet out the window. Jenny said she could hear the kid wailing in the background, and she could tell the kid was just faking the crying fit. The dad was asking her for advice on how to find it. Jenny was like ‘Gee, that sounds bad! I sure hope you find your tablet. Maybe just buy your kid a new one.’”<br><br>“Yeah, shitty kid.”<br><br>“Yeah, we’ve all been there,” He said, winking at me.<br><br>“Right,” I said.<br><br>“Jenny told me that this guy was getting more and more angry. He kept saying that this was a limited edition tablet, and that he wanted it back. He kept saying he was worried that it would get crushed by another car.”<br><br>“So what happened?”<br><br>“Well, the cops showed up. One of our guys pulled him over, and Jenny could hear the radio going off in the background. She told me that the cops were telling this guy that they weren’t going to stop traffic for him, and that he was just going to have to leave it. Apparently, the guy was going absolutely crazy. The cop got on Jenny’s line and told her that the guy was actually threatening them. Jenny said she never heard the guy say anything threatening, even though he was really angry.”<br><br>“Yeah, I can’t blame him. We’ve all been there.”<br><br>“Yeah, we have,” Tony said, grinning. “Jenny said she could hear the cops telling the guy that he wouldn’t have to worry about it getting crushed, because they were never going to stop traffic for ‘some shitty piece of equipment’.”<br><br>“So what happened?”<br><br>“Jenny said that the guy was telling them to stop traffic so he could go look for it. He was saying he would jump out in traffic and stop it himself if they wouldn’t. Jenny said that the cops told him that if he jumped out of his car, they would arrest him. The guy started going crazy, saying he was going to call the police commissioner and get them fired. Jenny told me that they took the guy’s keys away from him, and put them in the back of the car. Jenny said she could hear the cops searching the guy, and the sounds of the guy crying.”<br><br>“Yeah, I can’t blame them. I would do the same thing if I was there.”<br><br>“Yeah, I told her I would do the same thing.” He waited for a second as a couple of orders came in, and he started plating them.<br><br>“They didn’t actually arrest the guy, or anything, Jenny told me. They just made him sit in the back of the car while they worked out a plan. Jenny told me that they ended up calling Search and Rescue. They told the father that they were going to stop traffic, and have search and rescue look for the tablet. Jenny said it took them hours to find it, but they did. It wasn’t even that far from where the guy had thrown it out.”<br><br>“Did they ever find it?”<br><br>“Nope. They told the guy they found it, though. Jenny said she could hear the guy rejoicing on the radio. They told him they were going to stop traffic, and that he should go look for it. Jenny said the guy was so happy. He was thanking the cops, and kissing ass. Jenny told me that they even gave him a couple of Pb&J sandwiches. They told him they were going to stop traffic, and he could go look for his tablet. He went out, and sure enough, traffic stopped. Jenny said that the guy walked out into traffic, looking around.”<br><br>“Did they ever find it?”<br><br>“They never did,” Tony said with a grin. “You see, the Pb&J sandwiches weren’t for the guy. They were for his kid. Jenny told me that the cops stopped traffic, and the guy walked out. Then, they hit him. Jenny said that she could hear the sound of the guy’s body hitting the road. She even heard the sound of his bones crushing.”<br><br>“Eww.”<br><br>“Yeah, it isn’t pretty. Jenny said it took the guy almost a half hour to die,” Tony said, as he handed a couple of plates to the expeditor.<br><br>“Yeah, I can’t blame them. I would have done the same thing if I was there.”<br><br>“Yeah, so would I. I probably would have driven the car that hit him. Jenny said that the guy died shortly after they got him back in the car. They didn’t call an ambulance, or anything. Jenny said she could hear the sound of the kid’s sobbing on the line when the cops told him that his dad was dead. Jenny told me that the cops took the kid to a foster home, and they never heard from either of them again, but she always remembered that story.” Tony went back to filling the plates with sauce.<br><br>Sarah is probably the sweetest woman I’ve met. She’s gentle, and kind, and she makes me feel like I’m the only person in the world when we’re together. We had a great relationship until the night that all changed.<br><br>It was about 3 months ago that I was going to pick her up from work. I didn’t usually do that, but tonight was different. Tonight, we were going to break the news to her parents that we were engaged. I had the ring in my pocket, and in my mind, I was practicing what I was going to say to them when I asked permission.<br><br>I walked in the door at the precinct, and waited for her to get off work. She usually got off around 11, but they had been holding her over for the last few nights. Tonight, they told her they wouldn’t let her go until 2. I wasn’t about to take that risk, so I decided to go in and talk to her boss.<br><br>When I walked in her room, she was sitting at her desk, which is where I usually found her when I went in to talk to her. All of a sudden, I heard a voice that made my heart stop.<br><br>“I know you’re hungry. Stop telling me that you’re hungry. You need to be still, and quiet, and stop telling me that you’re hungry.” She sounded different. She didn’t sound like herself. She sounded like she was in a lot of pain, or like she had just been through something terrible.<br><br>“Sarah, is everything ok?”<br><br>“Oh, is everything ok? Well, I guess that depends on how you look at it. It’s not great for the person we’re looking for, but for everyone else, it’s not that bad. I mean, the cops are all out searching, and I’m doing my best to help them. The only problem is that we can’t find the person we’re looking for.”<br><br>“Yeah, I know what you mean.” I walked over to her, and sat down