I was the supervisor on a Sunday, dayshift, which was generally our slowest shift (which is why I picked it), when our dispatcher asked if I would approve an unlock of a science lab for a lab assistant. At this time, we did not unlock locked rooms because if you were supposed to have access you would have a card access key that gave you access. Who were we to be deciding who gets access to what? Anyway, the dispatcher said that there was a problem with the tortoise.
Now, in the basement of the Duncan Hall building, lives a tortoise. His name is Jeremiah and he has been living at the university since before I was born, and I was nearing 50 at this point. When I first arrived at the university, the tortoise had “Please Do Not Release Me. I Am A Pet And I Won’t Survive In The Wild” painted on him because eco-terror was a thing then. People used to release lab animals to free them from their slave bonds. You’ve probably seen examples of that in the beginning of several apocalyptic sci-fi/horror movies.
Apparently, the problem was that Jeremiah had fallen on his back and that can kill a tortoise if left alone long enough, and the lab assistant next door couldn’t get to him. Her. Them? So to be fun, I radioed that I was responding “Code 3” meaning lights and sirens. Which I did. I noticed the other three officers on the team did as well. We all reached the building within seconds of one another and it was a race to see who would reach the tortoise first.
As we charged down the basement hallway toward the lab, a lab assistant and a professor who had come by after we had been called, watched wide-eyed as we sprinted to the room. And there, in the window to the lab, we could all see the tortoise. On his back. Struggling. Fighting for his very life.
“Wow, that was not the response I was expecting,” the professor said.
“Hey, when someone’s in trouble, we come,” I said, smiling. I took out my all-access card key and swiped it over the card reader to the lab. The card reader blinked red and nothing else happened. I tried again. Nothing. The other officers tried their “all-access” card keys. None of us could get in. Someone in the Biology Department had requested extremely restricted access.
“Well,” I said. “That was anti-climactic. This isn’t fun anymore.”
“Now what do we do?” the lab assistant asked. “We already tried to call the Department Chair, but no one answered and the voicemail box is full.”
I checked with my officers and no one had any ideas. Finally, after I updated the dispatcher, she asked me if I wanted her to unlock the entire building. She could only change the status on a building level, but she could unlock the entire building and then lock it back up again, when we were done.
“Do it.”
The entire building seemed to beep and the card access reader turned green. I opened the door and the lab assistant went in and righted the tortoise.
Whew.
Jeremiah was saved and the dispatcher locked the doors again and all was right with the world. At least for the moment.
The best calls are the fun calls, the happy ending calls, and the calls where you can honestly help someone. It makes you feel good inside.
And, as of this writing, Jeremiah is still living comfortably in his home in the basement of Duncan Hall.