Evening Star Newspaper, November 29, 1931, Page 94

THI. SUNDAY STAR, WASHINGTON, D. C., NOVEMBER 29, 1391. ” ashington iohts In 1 hich Certain Amazing Services Per formed by Telephone Operators in the Very Early Fours of the Morning Make a Thrilling Tale of Life and Deatir and Strange Eimergencies. C By Haroun al-Rashid, Jr. EDITOR'S NOTE—This is the second of a eerics of art'cles on interesting scenes and evconis witnessed in the Na- tion’s Capital afier nightfall, T is when the noises of th> city are stilled for the nigit that the real sense of loneli- ness grips the human heart. Long after miunight and long before the first dim reys of dawn, when the neigh- bor’s radio no longer squawks its messag2 of other beings within e~rshot, when the only sound of life is the disiant hum of an auto- mobile speeding beyond our ken, there comes a desciation, a sense of desertion to those of us who are unabie to find safety in the pro- tecting arms of slecp. These are the hcurs in which sickness seems most severe, in which trag:dy and trouble rear their heads most vencmously out of the dark corners. And they are the hours in which so many hundreds turn for relief to that last link with the rest of the world—the telephone. « Throughout the night young women are sit- ting at the switchboards in the central offices scattered throughcut the city. Should a sud- den storm come up, or a fire break out, or a series of police cars go screaming down a street in the resideniial area they are put on their toes to handle the great increase in traffic on the lines going to and from their switchboards. It is in these hours that most of the calls involving the human side of the telephone sub- secriber come tnrougi. Visiting a busy central office serving one of the most populous residential sections of the city the other night I asked an official of the telephone company: “What would be done if a person suddenly called the operator and asked for a doctor?” “We keep a list of all available doctors in this part of the city on file here and one of them would be called,” he answered. “Do your operators very often get such calls?” *You might be surprised, but such requests fer help in emergencies of every kind are so fre- quent that even the most inexperienced oper- ator wouldn't, he at a loss as to what to do. Late at night there are dozens of such calls coming into every central office in the city.” ND watching carefully I found that the calm, almost mechanical voice of the op- erator merely was a shield over the woman at the switchboard. When trouble strikes it is to the closest help available that the cry of distress is sent. + Recently & man living in the northwest sec- tion of the city asked the operator to give him information. When the call was put through he explained that he was blind and alone in the house for the night. A new oil burner was leaking and the house was filled with fumes. Did the information operator know what he could de. She asked if he knew who had installed the burner but he didn't. He didn't even know what tyn burner it was. But within a few min- utes the erator had called the nearest oil burner service man and soon the trouble had been rectiied and the old gentleman was able to go back to bed. Sometimes the calls involve touches of drama as m a case met with in the last few weeks. An operater saw the light flash on a line from a pay station. Follow:ng the routine of the office she an- swered: “Deposit five cents, please.” But no coin was deposited. Instead across the wires came a faint but excited voice: “Get an ambulance, quick!” Then the connecticn was broken. The girl rang the number back but could get no answer, She lockesd up to see where the station was located and found it was a gasoline station. There was no time for delay on her part. Any number of things might have happened. So she called the police. The message was relayed by radio to the nearest scout car and within fivefive minutes two policemen broke into the locked and darkened filling station to find the manager beund and beaten unconscious. The:= thngs happen so frequently that it is not n2cessary to go outside the span of a week to cover the whole range of human interest. MOTHER living in the section served by the Columbia exchange was alone with her tiny baby one night. She was awakened by the child's stifisd cries late in the night and rushing to his crib found him in convulsions. She was a young mother and it was his first attack of the kind. Her anxiety and fear added to her lack of knowledge of what to do. She called the operator and asked for a doctor. “My baby’'s dying. He’s strangling to death,” she fairly screamed. The operator relayed the call for a doctor to the supervisor and while a call was being put through to the closest physician available the operator gave the distraught mether in- structions in artificial resuscitation over the phone. Later the doctor who answered the call said that only the emergency treatment that had been administered while he was on his way to the house had saved the life of the baby. In this case the operator had merely consideied her part of the case a routine mat- ter and it was only when the physician and the mother called to thank the telephone com- pany for the aid that had been rendered that the operater's superiors learned of what she had done. Somewhat similar was the case of another mother who called exictedly for a doetor. In order to get the proper doctor in the shortest time the operator asked her what had hap- paned. “My baby is just learning to walk and she got cut of bed and fell down the steps,” the mother explained. “Her head is cut and she’s bleedly badly.” All the doctors listed on- the files at the exchange were called, but by one of those rare mischances either none could be reached or else wore attending othier patients. While a “Then there was the man who stood on a stosl to fix a light while he was alone at home i & o s -~ “The operator got PLUMBING @& A SRimammsEnw . . Aswmmp ESgg=~ .,'..‘-... L the numbers of the nearest plumbers and called them in order.” doctor was being sought on the list kept in another exchange the chief operator called one of the girls who had her own car near the ex- change and asked her to go to the address and rush the baby to the hospital. She left her board. in charge of a relief operator and sped to the home and took the mother and baby to where she could get attention and was able to get back to her switchboard with the re- port that the child would be all right within a short time, Then there was the man who stood on a stool to fix a light while he was alone at home. The stool slipped and down he tumbled. Flail- ing his arms wildly t> break his fall he pulled a huge chiffonier over on top of himself and lay helpless on the floor. Rousing from his momentary daze he realized that a call for help would go unanswered. The door was locked and no one in the house. Luckily.the telephcne was near enough for him to pull it over. When he had knocked the receiver off the hook he shouted “help.” He could not hear the operator's voice and it did not occur to him to give the obvious in- formation she was asking for, but it tcok only a minute for her to locate the address and dispatch the fire rescue squad to the scene. The firemen soon climbed through a window and released him, uninjured, from beneath the piece of furniture. FTEN the assistance is rendered to the sur- prise of the person in difficulty. A woman living in the northern part of the city called one night just after the weather had taken on the tinge cf Fall. She gave her num- ber and waited. The phone rang and rang, but no answer. A minute later she called again and was obviously very annoyed. The operator listened when she found the woman was ex- cited. Still no answer. The operator then asked if she could be of help. No, the woman guessed not. A radiator cap had blown off and her living rcom was being flooded with hot water. The number she gave was a plumber’s, but she couldn't raise him. Then she hang up despairingly. The operator got the number of the nearest plumbers and called them in order. Five minutes later she called the woman whose room was being flooded and found that the plumber was fixing the radiator already. All kinds of curious requests come to the information operators and whenever they can, without interfering with the efficieney they owe the other subscribers, go cut of their way to help they do so A short while ago a visitor at a Washington hetel called informa- tion. “I came to town to see a chemist,” he said. “I think his name was so-and-so, but I can’t find it in the directory.” The operator looked through all her files and could find no such narie. In the subse- quent efforts to get what information might lead to idemtifying ths chemist she learned that the visitor needed teo find his man on a matter of grave legal importance. The oper- ator told him she would sze what she could do. As she found time between her other calls in the following half hour she called prom- inent chemists and scientists throughout the city. She asked if they had ever heard of such a man or any one with a name similar to his. Pimally an official of the Bureau of Standards recalled that there was a chemist living somewhere in the city with a name a little similar, but he had retired many years ago. But it was a clue. The operator looked up his address and telephone number and called back the visitor from out of the city. When she suggested the name he recalled that he had been wrcng and that the one she had located was the one he wanted to see. Tmass are not isolated cases spread over & period of years or months or even very many weeks, they have all happened so re- cently that it would be a breach of courstesy to publish the names of those involved. But the telephone company tries to keep a record and every one of these will be found in a book with the names of the subscribers served, the doctors called and the operators respone sible. Sometimes, of course, a subscriber will ex- pect more than his money’s worth and will be disappointed. But after all telephone ex- changes are for telephone service primarily. Onme: of the classic cases on record occurred a few years ago. A prominent resident wanted the telephone operator to play detective. Early one evening he called the exchange. “Will you do me a favor tonight,” he asked the operator. “What is it ycu wish, sir?” the girl replied. “Well, I'm expecting my daughter to try to elrpe tonight and the young man will call up my house pretty soon to tell her where to meet him. I wish you would listen in on all calls to my number and notify me at this number.” “I'm very sorry, sir, but we cannot listen in on messages.” That put another light on the proud father’s plan. Cajoling failed to shake the operator from her duties to her job. The supervisor and the chief operator succeeded in convinc- ing the man that the telephone company couldn’'t play detective. And to the credit of the operator she was able to overcome her womanly curiosity en not to listen in on calls that were put through to that number that night. She still doesn't know whether or not the young couple suc- ceeded in eluding the girl's father. Prolonging Life Continued from Pourth Page < diseases. The end is not yet in sight—but the work will continue. The principal research laboratory of the Public Health Service is the National Institute of Health at Waskington, D. C. In this labo- ratory we test serums and antitoxines, vaccines and similar materials produczd by commereial laboratories for use by doctors in tresting dis- ease. Without a standardization of “values” of such products, no doctor could have comfie dence in his own t ex i.:ont of any case calling for their use. We as 3 Nation are joired with the countries of Central and South America in the Pan- American Sanitary Bureau, so that the two continents may be guarded against epidemic infection in their commerce. Here at home we are inspecting aad safe- guarding the drinking water used on inter- state railway trains, steamers and even ferry boats We are assisting in keeping oyster beds free from polluticn, ascertaining the amount of narcotics America needs for medical and seientific purposes, so that narcotic drug ad- diction and traffic may be dealt with effectively. Our men give their lives that other men and women may be made more safe from health hazards. Some were sacrificed in the yellow fever investigations; five have given up their lives in the study of Rocky Mountain spotted fever. Psittacosis (parrot fever) has reeently taken its toll, . While there are men, and women, teo, with that spirit of seif-saerifice, with that much de- votion to the cause of medical seience, we can- not say that we have reached the ultimate Hmit in the prolongation of human life,