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Comment by perlgeek | Hacker News Reader

We had similar things happen at a previous $work, where you needed 09 to dial out, but one of the largest cities closed by had the prefix "0911". Here in Germany, our emergency lines are 110 and 112, so if you called any "0911 2<something>" number, and forgot to add the 09 prefix, you'd be calling the fire department.

But of course, this not being from space, it's not that news worthy :-)

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When we moved to a new town, when I was a kid, we learned that if a given number was free, you could request it as your phone number. But you had to know it was free by dialing it and getting a response saying so. My sister started trying memorable ones and tried [### - ### - 1234] (first 7 digits withheld for privacy reasons). That was the local fire department. 911 would have gone to the same phone.

She hastily apologized. Later she learned that "4000" was free, and my parents have used that phone number for 20 years now.

Similar situation here where you had to dial 9 then the number. Many employees with fast fingers who dialed long distance would find themselves accidentally double tapping the 1 and calling 911. After numerous emails and meetings they changed the dial out number to 8. No more incidents. Not news worth at all!

That brings back painful memories. 8+ years of dialing 9 to get an outside line and only 1 person had made that mistake (while trying to dial 411!) at a previous company. Then new management comes in and it happens twice in 2 days. Supposedly a huge fiasco and they started pushing to change the dial out digit immediately. Such a headache.

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