IStock Photo 443262 © adamkaz

The first 911 call ever dialed was made in Alabama, but it wasn’t supposed to be. It happened there, and not elsewhere, out of a little oneupsmanship.

First, a little history. In the 19th century, in an emergency, one had only to turn a phone’s hand crank and ask an operator to summon the police or fire department. With a new century came new challenges. The public advent of the rotary dial (in 1919), and then the push-pad (1963), meant that phone lines were issued unique identification numbers. Every local fire, police, and emergency department now had one (they still do, of course), separate from all the others.

This required people to remember—or frantically look up—phone numbers in the middle of an emergency. What if you couldn’t remember? Couldn’t reach an operator? Couldn’t find the phone book? Lost consciousness in the middle of the call? This is the stuff of bad dreams.

On January 12, 1968, a Wall Street Journal headline announced: AT&T to Introduce Emergency Number Usable across U.S. By then, England had been using a nationwide, all-purpose emergency number for 30 years: 9-9-9. (Its first caller was John Stanley Beard, whose house had been burgled. Today, he is 94, a renowned ecologist living in Australia.) The US’s largest phone company had decided to follow suit: three digits, no-pay, connecting anyone in the country to emergency services. A follow-up article in the January 15th issue of the Wall Street Journal marked the first time the number was revealed to the public: 9-1-1.

The president of Alabama Telephone Co., Bob Gallagher, happened to read that paper, and it set his mind on a bit of thunder-stealing. A month later, just as the emergency call system became operational, the first 911 call was dialed—February 16th, 1968, in Haleyville, AL. It was put through the Alabama Telephone Co., not through AT&T.

The caller was Speaker Pro-Tem of the US House of Representatives, Rankin Fite; the receiver, Representative Tom Bevill, of Alabama. The exchange: the two men greeted one another, hung up, and then—being in close proximity—got together for coffee and doughnuts.

The number 911 was gradually implemented by more and more phone providers, whose advertisements and public service announcements drilled the number into the national consciousness. In An Emergency, Dial 9-1-1. In Case of Fire, Call 9-1-1. It’s unclear why those three digits were chosen. In 1968, 411 (for information) and 611 (for a problem with service, or with a pay phone) services were entering their third year of operation at AT&T. It is possible the company took their cue for the initial “9” from the UK's 999 service. At the time, the WSJ merely indicated that AT&T “used a computer to select the ‘911’ combination as a particularly rememberable number.” While essentially arbitrary, it is easy to dial and hard to forget.

Having a reliable nationwide emergency call number has saved an untold number of lives. But increasingly, many of us are losing that lifeline.

One of the most pernicious threats involves cell phones. In an emergency, a cell phone can be a blessing—it allows the caller dialing 911 to immediately connect to a Public Safety Answering Point (PSAP) and ask for assistance. The downside is that years of movies, TV, and media coverage have taught Americans that a PSAP dispatcher can trace a call to its location. That is only true for land lines. From the dispatch’s perspective, a cell phone call could be coming from anywhere. They can see neither a cellular phone’s location nor its number. And the percentage of houses with landlines is diminishing: 1 in 6.21 adults now lives in a household with at least one cell phone but no landline.

The FCC estimates that more than 50% of 911 calls are now made using cell phones—which are subject to losing reception or power. Because of this, it recommends that a cell phone user immediately state his or her location.

But what if you don’t know your exact location? The FCC has recently required that each new cell phone come with either a GPS chip or the ability to triangulate its location from cellular antenna towers. Which gives rise to a further problem: some people consider GPS tracking an invasion of privacy.

Many callers are also discovering that not only will an ambulance cost you—the call will, too. Some 911 dispatches (which are, like more and more Poison Control centers, financially strapped) now charge a fee just to receive an emergency call. Take Tracy, CA. Its citizens can pay $48 for a year of unlimited emergency dialing or, failing that, be charged $300 for a single 911 call.

For anyone in Tracy, you might want to take that number off your speed dial.