You've Got Ambulance!

[Guest guest]

You've Got Ambulance!

By Lloyd Grove, Washington Post

WASHINGTON, D.C., U.S.A.,

11 Apr 2001, 10:43 AM CST

Shortly after midnight last Tuesday, Washington filmmaker Aviva

Kempner was sitting in front of a newly purchased computer and talking on the

phone to America Online. Kempner - trying to organize a screening of her

award-winning baseball documentary, " The Life and Times of Hank Greenberg " — was

in tears over her inability to get on the Internet and retrieve important

e-mails.

" It is true that I had just been crying out of frustration, " she

told us. " I needed those e-mails and it was driving me crazy. So I told the AOL

technician on the phone, 'If I can't retrieve my e-mails, I'm really going to

kill myself.' It was just a throwaway line. "

Kempner calmed down as the AOL employee patiently explained how to

fix the problem. Five minutes into the conversation, she recounted, an emergency

operator called on the other line. " Is somebody killing themselves there? " the

operator demanded. " No, of course not, " Kempner replied.

A few minutes later, there were loud, urgent knocks on the front

door of her house in Chevy Chase, D.C. " I hung up the phone and threw an

overcoat over my nightgown and went downstairs to see what was going on, "

Kempner said. " When I looked outside, I saw a firetruck, an ambulance and a

police car. I opened the door and eight people came in my house to make sure

that I wasn't committing suicide. I guess this is a cautionary tale: You gotta

be careful what you say to AOL technicians. "

AOL spokesman Weinstein told us: " The safety of our members

is our highest concern. So if we think that a member might be at risk, we like

to err on the side of caution. "