Emergencies can be confusing and sometimes we're left wondering if a particular situation is serious enough for us to dial 911 or not.
For one Michigan mom, accidentally locking her baby in a hot car was enough of a reason to get the authorities involved.
Lacey Guyton, who later shared her story in a viral Facebook post, explained that after a visit with her grandmother in Waterford, her worst nightmare happened.
She placed her two-month old daughter, Raina, "in her seat in the car along with the diaper bag and shut the door," but as she made her way around to the driver's side, the doors locked.
"I heard all the doors randomly lock and then immediately realized the keys were in her diaper bag in the car.. having only a key fob and push to start car, touching the door handle with the keys inside should've unlocked the door and it didn't," she wrote.
Lacey immediately asked her grandmother to call 911 while she "grabbed a huge chunk of asphalt off the ground and start bashing it on my front passenger window as hard as I could..."
When her attempts were rendered futile, her grandfather gave her a window breaker, but that also failed. All the while, her grandmother was on the phone trying to get through to the 911 dispatcher, who refused to send help.
That's right. Despite informing the dispatcher that the child was trapped in a hot car, which is a life-and-death situation, the family was told to "call a tow company because they don't send anyone out to unlock cars or break windows."
Lacey, who was getting more desperate, called 911 back to request a fire rescue, but once again her pleas did not make a difference.
Again she told me she would transfer me to a tow company because they don't send anyone out to break windows or unlock cars. So I decided to at least ask the tow company to come while I kept trying to break a window.
Lacey called a towing company while she continued her attempts to break the vehicle's window. She recalled Raina had stopped crying by that point, and was "starting to close her eyes." Lacey became more worried because she was unsure if her daughter was simply falling asleep or losing consciousness.
Realizing no emergency help is coming to save my baby was the worst feeling in the world. I ran to the back windshield to try breaking that and after two hard hits it finally shattered and I've never felt more relieved.
Lacey then realized that her key fob had malfunctioned because it still wouldn't unlock the car. She had to manually unlock the doors through the broken window in order to pull her child out.
The tow truck did not show up for another 12 minutes, which Lacey noted "would've been too late" to save her baby.
It was the most traumatic 15 minutes of my entire life and we are so thankful our daughter is okay, but we're extremely pissed that after calling 911 twice for our daughters life on the line, a dispatcher [who's] been there for years, still refused to send help.
Waterford Police has since apologized to Lacey for the dispatcher's "carelessness and said she would get more training."
However, Lacey isn't convinced training will do much as "no one should need any training at all to know that you need to send help in that situation."
Although she wouldn't wish this on anyone, if you ever find yourself in a situation like hers, Lacey recommends to "just go right for the back windshield" because it's the easiest to break.
