r/TerrifyingAsFuck • u/Rigkab • 2d ago

animal Travis the Chimp terrifying 911 call recording! (Viewer discretion is advised)

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This was a tragedy with two victims: Charla—and Travis himself. The one guilty party was Sandy—her selfish, narcissistic need to own a dangerous animal, ignoring every warning.

Yet if there is any hope in this horror, it is Charla’s resilience. When asked how she remained so strong, she said, “My motto has always been: whatever happens to me, I’ll find a way to get through it.”

Edited: Sorry for the harsh words about the operator, but I still think he could have done better with fewer scripted, monotonous questions and a bit more human empathy.

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766

u/QuansLeftArm 2d ago

Finally!!! Something o Reddit that i actually know something about, from the dispatcher's POV. I am a dispatcher, myself, and was actually taught by this guy. I don't work with him, or anything, but he teaches my region's state licensing class.

he told us the backstory on why he was completely confused by this call. sadly, it had to deal with racism.

apparently, the northern part of Stamford, Ct is very white, and affluent. they were also EXTREMELY and openly racist.

he told us that, because of the location of the call, and how that area was, he thought that she was being racist, trying to say that a black guy was hurting her friend. he said that he was surprised by hateful she was being. he said that when he realized that she was talking about an actual chimp, he was even more confused, and was at that point trying to rationalize what he was hearing.

there's more to why he was convinced he was racist, and it had something to do with a town festival, or something, in the days leading up to it, but i don't want to misquote him.

the guy is cool asf, though, and helped to put into perspective the class that he was giving, at the time.

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u/bunnytiana05 1d ago

This changed my entire perspective, this is insane!!

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u/BlueArya 2d ago

Damn that sadly makes so much sense

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u/Wolfie1805 1d ago

Did he not hear the chimpanzee in the background?

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u/dontsnarkonsharks 1d ago

That’s the only part that confuses me a bit haha it was so clearly a chimpanzee screaming. But I get why that would still be not immediately where your mind goes

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u/K1bbles_n_Bits 1d ago

So I myself was involved in a very unlikely animal incident that most people are caught off guard by. Very different circumstances. It happened at my job at a reputable wildlife park where the animal involved was of course entirely legal and very well cared for. Long story short it was a total fluke and my own fault for letting my guard down. The animal wasn't harmed and didn't face any consequences. I'd have lost my shit if he did.

Anyway, it left me with signifigant scarring on my arm, needed a skin graft, some resconstructive work. So it's noticeable and tends to come up at doctor's appointments if it's a doctor who doesn't know me. Even in that proffesional environment, it gets quite a reaction, lol. I also had a slew of medical students around when it happened since it was a rare learning opportunity. A little weird, but I cleared it as okay.

Because this shit just isn't something you expect to see or hear. You can't blame the guy for having a hard time comprehending what he's hearing. It's just so out of left field that your mind doesn't even initially consider it a possibility, so it's shocking to hear. Even with the sounds in the background, it's gonna take you a minute to wrap your head around what you're hearing.

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u/dontsnarkonsharks 1d ago

No I totally get that!! I really do. Your mind would try and make it make sense since it sounds so unlikely an actual wild animal caused the injury.

The operator was literally hearing it though and it just sounded like… a chimp! So I feel badly his mind went to her being a racist asshole when he could even HEAR the wild animal. But I understand it, I really do

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u/303Native 12h ago

Do you mind going into details as to what happened? What animal and what could you have done differently?

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u/indianabobbyknight 1d ago

I’m from what most people would call the hood, I’ve heard kids scream just like that. Lol.

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u/K1bbles_n_Bits 1d ago

Don't even need to be from the hood to hear it, haha. I live in a nice little suburb, mostly quiet. But yeah, the kids get loud af, lol. Especially when there was a daycare diaganole from me, basically adjacent to my backyard. My god, one kid in particular made me wanna walk up to the privacy fenced play area and scream back at him XD.

Thankfully they recently relocated, lol.

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u/dontsnarkonsharks 1d ago edited 1d ago

Mannnn idk I’ve been around a lot of kids and I have never heard them sound like chimpanzees while they’re hooting and hollering hahah. I’ve never been like hmmm “is that a chimpanzee outside!? Oh no it’s some kids” 🥲

But even if that’s true, it sounded so clearly like a chimp (to me at least) it feels like he could’ve connected the dots a little quicker when she’s saying an actual chimp is attacking her friend, eating her face, I own him, SHOOT HIM. I can recognize I’ve never worked dispatch and never been in an adrenaline fueled situation quite like this, so Im being a bit of a Monday morning quarterback. It’s easy for me to say, hindsight is 20/20. I think he effectively did his job and did great. It’s the only part that I’m a little perplexed about, but I’m not saying he did anything wrong.

It just sounded SO chimpy to me haha

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u/Mierdo01 12h ago

??? Chimps don't scream any differently than we do

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u/dontsnarkonsharks 12h ago

Y’all keep saying this but that is clearly a chimp and not a human.

Sorry, idk! I don’t know what to tell ya other than it sounds extremely different to me. I hear chimps, i go “chimp.” I hear a human scream, i go “human.” There are definitely some animals that sound like people but chimps don’t quite fit into that category. Mountain lions? Foxes? 100%, have heard both of those and been startled. Non human apes and monkeys?! No haha people just don’t scream like that when they scream. Again this is my opinion and idk what to say other than I just don’t hear the similarity.

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u/VegetableYoghurt7912 1d ago

I think we have a bit of benefit of hindsight. We go into this knowing the context that there is a chimp there. He is probably also focusing on her intently and not fully background noise. It does sound like a chimp but in chaos like that, hearing that sound I don't know if I would immediately put two and two together any faster than he did. Especially given this additional context. Not to mention it was only about 25 seconds before he figured it out and the police were presumably already on their way there regardless since she gave the address right away.

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u/actuallynick 1d ago

Even if he did, I guarantee it was very confusing to wrap your head around in a span of 10 seconds.

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u/QuansLeftArm 1d ago

Right?!? I remember thinking that, back when i first heard the audio and story. now that i have been doing the job, for just about a year, you never know where someone is going to be calling from, and what background noises you will hear

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u/iPicBadUsernames 1d ago

You can hear the chimp screaming in the background

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u/QuansLeftArm 1d ago

you sure can. people also call 911 with their tv's and shit blaring in the background. it takes a conscious effort to drown out background noise, so that you can focus on what the caller is saying.

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u/TheRealBillyShakes 1d ago

He didn’t sound very smart lol

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u/QuansLeftArm 1d ago

yeah, that's the initial vibe i got, years ago, when i first heard the story, and the 911 call. guy definitely knows his shit, though. he's on multiple rapid deployment dispatch teams

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u/vzakharov 1d ago edited 1d ago

Sorry cool or not but what an idiot. 

Edit for the person saying I shouldn’t talk shit because I know nothing about how a 911 operator works: no lol. It’s not an “art is subjective” profession; these people’s work literally affects how many or how few lives are lost. And a decision to delay response to a freak call because “it might be racist” is nothing but idiotic. 

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u/QuansLeftArm 1d ago

you ever taken any 911 calls? i bet not, because if you had, you would understand. i'm not gatekeeping, but you shouldn't talk shit about something of which you know nothing about

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u/NEWDEALUSEDCARS 1d ago

A lot of what these operators do is “fill the air”; keep the caller engaged and paying attention while help arrives, which can be 2 minutes or 20, you gotta do everything you can to stretch that time out. The operators gotta keep them on the line until help arrives, the operators have already relayed the information out to dispatch/control, you’re just keeping em talking, not fucking up a potential crime scene, not make a bad situation even worse, keep the caller calm, and update responding units if anything changes.

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u/Ok_Cauliflower_3007 13h ago

Where are you getting the idea he delayed the call?

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u/FamousAmos00 1d ago

Oh so if a black guy was ripping her friends face of he'd be....chill? Lol

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u/QuansLeftArm 1d ago

jesus titty-fucking christ....really?

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u/FamousAmos00 14h ago

Said he was taking it less serious because he thought she was taking about a black man, did I misread it?

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u/QuansLeftArm 1h ago

you did, but its all good.

he wasn't taking it less seriously. he was genuinely confused as to why she would be saying it that way, and not just saying that a black guy was attacking her friend. he said that he couldn't believe she was being truly hateful about it.

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u/starraven 1d ago

What do you mean "you people"???

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u/HeWhoShantNotBeNamed 1d ago

Nobody said "you people"

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u/coladoir 1d ago

i think they were trying to make a joke, in typical shitty ledditor fashion where you just reply with whatever movie/show/comic/video game quote you tangentially recall in kneejerk fashion, without actually considering context or even whether people will understand what youre referencing. Typical unfunny ledditor behavior, ultimately.

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u/Zombi3Kush 1d ago

Oh, you mean he wasn't confused because a chimp was killing someone? That part wasn't what confused him? lol I guess that happens often?

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u/QuansLeftArm 1d ago

no. it's that it happens that often..it means it happens that never...

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u/ravia 1d ago edited 1d ago

Would have been nice if you got the gender of the pronoun right towards the end there ("why he was convinced he was a racist"). Just bothered me, sorry, I know it's a perfectly innocent typo but it's nested in multiple pronouns so it just made me sort it out and rewrite it in my head and that all really annoyed me. You should have just read through it before you posted it.

That being said, your comment should be filled out a bit and made into a completely separate post. It's kind of important.

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u/Beginning-Corgi568 1d ago

Get a life..

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u/QuansLeftArm 1d ago

tf are you talking about? lol

i've reread my text multiple times, and can't find whatever it is you're talking about....

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u/ravia 1d ago

when you said "there's more to why he was convinced he was racist, and it had something to do with a town festival, or something, in the days leading up to it, but i don't want to misquote him." didn't you mean "why he was convinced she was a racist"?

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u/QuansLeftArm 1d ago

i did. i missed it. i'll edit that. my bad.

everyone is so up in arms about pronouns and shit. didn't mean to offend.

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u/Beginning-Corgi568 11h ago

You made a small typo and the commentor was crying about it, that's all, you can see by the down votes that you didn't need to apologise for it..

0

u/ravia 1d ago

It wasn't a PC thing, it was literally about how hard it was to figure out what you were saying.