You can hear her actual call at 3:30.
Terribly disturbing. What is worse is the freakin' dickhead 911 operator at the end of the call. He clearly has trouble understanding her, and English doesn't seem to be his first language. I wonder if a public safety job where your performance entirely depends on how well you communicate should be given to someone like that. Maybe I am being too harsh, but it is frustrating to hear him try to understand something she explained previously.
I guess aside from public safety, he has to ensure the safety of the police coming to the rescue as well. When he heard "guns" his hears lit up.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Travis_%28chimpanzee%29Travis was born near Festus, Missouri, at Mike and Connie Braun Casey's compound, currently named the Missouri Chimpanzee Sanctuary. In a separate incident, Travis's mother Suzy was shot and killed following an escape in 2001.[7] He was adopted by Sandra and Jerome Herold when he was three days old.[2] They raised Travis at their home at Rock Rimmon Road in the North Stamford section of Stamford, Connecticut.[8] Travis was the Herolds' constant companion, and would often accompany them to work and when they went shopping in town.[8] The Herolds owned a towing company and Travis would pose for photos at the shop and ride with the tow truck, his seatbelt buckled and wearing a baseball shirt. Travis became well known in the town and had been known to like police officers who they would encounter when towing cars.[8]
Like most wild animals, the chimpanzee could not be domesticated, but he was socialized. Neighbor Tony Marcari said he used to play around with Travis and wrestle with him. He said the animal always knew when to stop and paid close attention to its owner. "He listened better than my nephews", Marcari said. "I just don't know why he would do that." Dr. Charles Ray Jones, a Hartford-based Lyme Disease specialist in New Haven, believes Travis's Lyme disease could easily have been the cause of the attack. Lyme Disease often causes fits of rage and depression in dogs, cats and humans for which psychotropic drugs are prescribed. Toxicology reports confirmed Sandra's statement that she had given Travis Xanax laced tea the day of the attack which could have exacerbated his symptoms. [9][10] Xanax (Alprazolam) is a short acting potent anti-anxiety drug that can cause disinhibition and disorientation when taken in recreational doses and occasionally paradoxical reactions of hallucination, aggression, rage and mania. But Dr. Colleen McCann, a primatologist with the Wild Life Conservation Society's Bronx Zoo pointed out that even under the best of conditions chimpanzees are prone to unpredictable violent behavior, being much more aggressive than gorillas. [11]
Travis was able to open doors using keys, could dress himself, watered plants, was able to feed hay to his owner's horses, ate at a table with the rest of the family, drank wine from a stemmed glass, and loved ice cream even knowing the schedules of the ice cream trucks. He logged onto the computer to look at pictures, watched television using a remote control and brushed his teeth using a Water Pik.[4][5][12] On television, he enjoyed watching baseball.[13] Travis had also driven a car on several occasions (which is not difficult for a chimpanzee).[14][15] Jerome died from cancer in 2004, and their only child died in a car accident; as a result, Sandra Herold considered Travis as a son and pampered him.[8][14] Sandra slept and bathed with Travis saying, "I'm, like, hollow now. He slept with me every night. Until you've eaten with a chimp and bathed with a chimp, you don't know a chimp." [16][17]
I had no idea chimps were so intelligent.
On February 16, 2009, Travis attacked Sandra Herold's friend Charla Nash, age 55, inflicting devastating injuries to her face and limbs. Travis had left the house with Herold's car keys, and Nash came to help get the animal back in the house; upon seeing Nash, Travis immediately attacked her.[8] Travis was familiar with Nash, who had also worked at the Herolds' towing company, although Nash had a different hair style at the time of the attack.[21] The ape had been taking medication for Lyme disease.[14] Herold, then 70 years old, attempted to stop Travis by hitting him with a shovel and stabbing him with a butcher knife; however this only made the animal angrier. She then called 9-1-1 and pleaded for help. Travis' screams can be heard in the background of the tape as Sandra pleads for police with guns saying, "He's eating her."[22][23][24] Emergency medical services waited for police before approaching the house. Travis walked up to the police car when it arrived and tried to open a locked passenger door, instead smashing a side-view mirror. Then he went calmly around to the driver's-side door and opened it, at which point Officer Frank Chiafari shot him several times. Travis retreated to the house, where he was found dead inside his cage.[8]
Injuries to Nash were described as "horrendous" by the emergency crew.[19] Within the following 72 hours, she underwent more than seven hours of surgery on her face and hands by four teams of surgeons. The hospital provided counseling to its staff members who initially treated her because of the extraordinary nature of Nash's injuries.[25] Paramedics noted she lost her hands, nose, eyes, lips, mid-face bone structure, and received significant brain tissue injuries.[26] Doctors were able to successfully reattach her jaw, but announced on April 7, 2009 that Nash would be blind for life. Her injuries made her a possible candidate for an experimental face transplant surgery.[25] After initial treatment at Stamford Hospital, Nash was transferred to the Cleveland Clinic in Cleveland, Ohio.[27] Her family started a trust fund to raise money to pay her “unfathomable” medical bills and support her daughter.[28] Nash revealed her damaged face in public for the first time on the Oprah Winfrey Show on November 11, 2009. She was not in physical pain from the attack, and family members said she hoped to leave the Cleveland Clinic soon.[29] Pictures have surfaced on the internet displaying Nash's face before and after the attack.
As per standard procedure, Travis's head was taken to the state laboratory for a rabies test and the body was taken to the University of Connecticut for a necropsy.[4] The body tested negative for rabies,[18] but a Connecticut professor found the presence of alprazolam (Xanax) in its system.[30] Necropsy results in May 2009 confirmed the chimp was overweight and had been stabbed.[31] The remains were cremated at All Pets Crematory in Stamford on February 25, 2009.[32]
How terrible. I am surprised I didn't hear about this till now.
I don't blame the chimp. I blame the idiots who thought it would be a good idea to keep a wild animal as a pet. Apparently he had an acting career as well.
edit:
Officer's account:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/25/nyregion/25chimp.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1This is probably the worst thing I've ever read.
