911 Worked

RG84

Bronze
May 21, 2010
640
0
16
I live close to the Malecon and someone is always burning something there. Today the smell was strong and when I looked out my window I could see smoke. I wasn't worried about the fire but the smoke was starting to enter my place. I closed the windows and took a walk over. I could see the fire engulfing a tree and I knew it would spread to other close trees. 

My spanish isn't great but I called 911 and was able to give the location of the fire. To my surprise a fire truck arrived around 10 mins later. Yeah not a fast response time but I was still surprised that one came. They put out the fire and I returned home. 

Happy I had my bedroom door closed, but the living room still smells like smoke. Rattssss
Still I wondered did anyone else call or do Dominicans just put up with ish like this? There are older people living closer to the smoke than me and I can only guess how it is affecting them. (is it affect or effect)
 

ElVenao

New member
Mar 16, 2017
51
0
0
Nice to hear that. We had a situation occur to us last year and called 911 and within a couple of minutes an ambulance showed up. Very pleased to be surprised that a service is working.

Hopefully it stays that way, unfortunately I believe that prank callers will F up this experience. It still boggles my mind how soulless can a person be to waste emergency resources by prank calling. To make things worse it is extremely unrealistic to expect to be able to fine or enforce/persecute wrongdoers given how things work in this country.
 

Planter

New member
Aug 29, 2017
14
0
0
911 is part of the Dominican culture now. As RG84 says... it works and benefits poor and rich.


Not sure about that. I called 911 a few times to complain about noisy neighbors. It worked, sooner or faster (sometimes only after 2nd call) police came and forced the neighbors to stop the party and shut down music... But I can't say that neighbors were happy, their culture was to produce noise, not stop it, and I could see that police would rather join the party and listen to that raggaeton too instead of shutting it down, but they had to because the call was received through 911 system so it was recorded.

Anyway, 911 works here now.
 

cobraboy

Pro-Bono Demolition Hobbyist
Jul 24, 2004
40,964
936
113
Not sure about that. I called 911 a few times to complain about noisy neighbors. It worked, sooner or faster (sometimes only after 2nd call) police came and forced the neighbors to stop the party and shut down music... But I can't say that neighbors were happy, their culture was to produce noise, not stop it, and I could see that police would rather join the party and listen to that raggaeton too instead of shutting it down, but they had to because the call was received through 911 system so it was recorded.

Anyway, 911 works here now.
911 is NOT for general police needs, like noise annoyance. It's for emergencies.

That said, we saw a head-on collision between a big empty Daihatsu truck and Corolla on the hill to between Loa Alpes and Corazon de Jesus toward Jarabacoa Wednesday late morning, happened maybe 500m in front of us. The truck went in a ditch, front smashed, the car in the middle of the road, front flattened with parts strewn everywhere.

Alida called 911. No response, just rang.

We called the PN in Jarabacoa and they got there along with an ambulance & fire truck in about 10 minutes, which is pretty good. However, there were 10 people at the wreck by the time we got there, and 10 more within a couple of minutes.

Fortunately, both vehicles were not going fast, the truck going slowly uphill, and the car taking it easy going downhill and somehow nobody got badly hurt. But a LOT of damage. Not sure what happened, buy suspect passing had something to do with it. The car being passed was gone.
 

Mauricio

Gold
Nov 18, 2002
5,607
7
38
911 is NOT for general police needs, like noise annoyance. It's for emergencies.

That said, we saw a head-on collision between a big empty Daihatsu truck and Corolla on the hill to between Loa Alpes and Corazon de Jesus toward Jarabacoa Wednesday late morning, happened maybe 500m in front of us. The truck went in a ditch, front smashed, the car in the middle of the road, front flattened with parts strewn everywhere.

Alida called 911. No response, just rang.

We called the PN in Jarabacoa and they got there along with an ambulance & fire truck in about 10 minutes, which is pretty good. However, there were 10 people at the wreck by the time we got there, and 10 more within a couple of minutes.

Fortunately, both vehicles were not going fast, the truck going slowly uphill, and the car taking it easy going downhill and somehow nobody got badly hurt. But a LOT of damage. Not sure what happened, buy suspect passing had something to do with it. The car being passed was gone.



911 specifically states they are the number to call for noise pollution. Which is a weird thing though. 
 

mobrouser

Bronze
Jan 1, 2002
2,339
98
48
I actually think 10 minutes is quite impressive. Definitely faster than the average in my suburban 1st world life.

And I would never have thought of 911 for noise complaints.
 

Planter

New member
Aug 29, 2017
14
0
0
911 is the ONLY number that really works for noise complaints, at least in Santo Domingo. Calling any other number for that reason is a waste of time.
 

Garyexpat

Bronze
Sep 7, 2012
2,105
739
113
I can't speak to the timing but I can say my only (thank God) experience with the fire dept. was very positive.
When my truck caught on fire (in my apartment parking garage) someone called the fire Dept. I was busy with 2 other guys trying, unsuccessfully to put the fire out when they arrived.
They were professional and very quick about it. A few question by the chief and they were gone.
I was surprisingly impressed.
 

healimonster

Member
Sep 29, 2015
176
0
16
911 specifically states they are the number to call for noise pollution. Which is a weird thing though. 
Typical Dominican Idiocracy. Let's use 911 door pool party complaints. Seems like a good idea. This will never have a bad ending.

Sent from my Pixel XL using Tapatalk
 

Aguaita29

Silver
Jul 27, 2011
2,618
271
83
Last year we had a couple of emergencies and we had to call 911 twice and they came in within 5-10 minutes. First some police officers showed up, and then the ambulance. The second time, an issue came up because we wanted to take our relative to Plaza de la Salud, but they said they couldn't because Plaza de la Salud won't accept patients when they come on 911. We took a taxi then!