A Michigan 911 dispatcher received a unique call Monday from a girl in the back of a car who wanted to report that her mother was driving in what the girl said was a drunken condition.
The incident took place at about 6 p.m. Monday, according to Toledo, Ohio’s WTVG-TV. In its report, the station played pieces of the 911 call that triggered police to respond.
“Hi, my mom is drunk driving crazy as [expletive] with me and my little brother in the car. We don’t feel safe at all. Like, we need somebody to come find us,” the caller said.
Later in the call, the 17-year-old who was in the back seat with her 15-year-old brother, told 911 the vehicle was passing through Blissfield, Michigan, a small town just north of the Ohio border.
A man who was described as a friend of the girl’s mother was also in the car, sitting in the passenger seat.
The dispatcher remained connected to the girl for about 10 minutes.
Officer Thomas Anton with Blissfield Police came upon the vehicle within minutes of the call.
“The vehicle was actually going over the lines and actually almost hit another car next to it, and it came over the double yellow lines twice and almost caused a head-on collision twice,” Anton told WTVG.
A video released by WTVG had a snippet of the girl’s call in which she talked to her mother as a police car intercepted them.
“He’s pulling you over,” the girl said.
“What?” a woman, presumably the driver, said.
“He’s pulling you over,” the girl repeated.
After the vehicle was stopped, the woman, whose name was not given but whose age was given as 45, was taken into custody.
“Has the officer arrived at the vehicle yet?” the dispatcher said, according to the WTVG video.
“Yes, he just took her out of the car,” the girl replied.
Later on, according to the video, the dispatcher praised the girl’s actions.
“You did the right thing, OK?” the dispatcher said.
“OK,” the girl replied.
“If you need anything else, you can just call us right back, OK?” the dispatcher said, adding, “You just stay in the car until the officer comes to talk to you, OK?”
“OK,” the girl responded.
The woman, who is from Adrian, Michigan, went to the Lenawee County Jail. According to WTVG, a test showed her blood alcohol content was about twice the legal limit for driving. She is expected to face a charge of operating a vehicle while impaired, a misdemeanor.
The man who was in the passenger seat drove the children to their grandmother’s house, WTVG reported.
Anton praised the girl for making the call.
“They were quite scared when mom was driving down the road drunk,” Anton said. “They were scared for mom’s safety and for theirs, so they called 911 to make sure that, in fact, the daughter said that they saved mom’s life.”
The daughter might have saved her own life and her brother’s from the potentially deadly ride.
According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, about 32 lives are lost every day in the U.S. in crashes linked to drunk driving.
According to Mothers Against Drunk Driving, 220 children in the U.S. died in 2017 due to crashes in which alcohol was a factor. Of those, 54 percent were in vehicles in which the driver had a .08 blood alcohol content or higher.
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