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Trapped Girls Call For Help On Facebook

Posted by samzenpus on from the take-my-are-you-in-danger-quiz dept.

definate writes "Two teenage girls (aged 10 and 12) found themselves trapped/lost in a stormwater drain in Adelaide, South Australia. The interesting point of this article that makes it Slashdot worthy, is that although the teenage girls had mobile phones, instead of calling for help using 000 (Australia's 911 number), they decided to notify people through Facebook. My guess is it was something along the lines of 'Jane Doe is like totally trapped in a stormwater drain, really need help, OMG!'. Luckily a young friend of the girls was online at the time and was able to call the proper authorities."

35 of 380 comments (clear)

  1. Shame on you Facebook! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    The girls were eligible for a Darwin Award and you took it away from them!

    1. Re:Shame on you Facebook! by oldspewey · · Score: 3, Funny

      New clause to be added to Facebook TOS:

      If you find yourself in an emergency situation, please add "911 Emergency Response" as a friend, then write a simple wall posting describing the nature of your emergency. Help will be dispatched immediately.

      --
      If libertarians are so opposed to effective government, why don't they all move to Somalia?
    2. Re:Shame on you Facebook! by IcyNeko · · Score: 5, Funny

      Do you want to be a fan of "911 Emergency Response"?
      [Yes] [No]

    3. Re:Shame on you Facebook! by RyanSpade · · Score: 3, Funny

      RyanSpade likes this.

    4. Re:Shame on you Facebook! by oldspewey · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Plus there are situations where being able to text "help, I'm being held hostage" is a more viable option than making a voice call to say "help, I'm being held hostage"

      --
      If libertarians are so opposed to effective government, why don't they all move to Somalia?
  2. Coverage in the stormdrain? by wjh31 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    get me to australia!

  3. Teenagers? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "Two teenage girls (aged 10 and 12)..."

    Teenagers just keep getting younger and younger these days.

    1. Re:Teenagers? by jgtg32a · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Maybe they pulled off the covers?

      When I was a kid on my street there were two storm drains across the street from each other. We turned those things into pill boxes and shot waterguns at passing cars. There was also a pipe between them and we would go from one drain to the other, tons of fun.

    2. Re:Teenagers? by heritage727 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Well, you have to be 13 to have a Facebook account. They have Facebook accounts. So they must be 13, and hence teenagers, even if they're only 10 and 12. Seems perfectly clear to me.

    3. Re:Teenagers? by yancey · · Score: 3, Funny

      Girls mature faster than boys. :-)

      --
      Ouch! The truth hurts!
    4. Re:Teenagers? by dcollins · · Score: 4, Funny

      Overheard in a subway car...

      Friend A: "My god, I can't believe I'm turning 20 tomorrow."

      Friend B: "Yeah, man, double digits, wow."

      --
      We know where leadership by an anti-intellectual "strongman" who scapegoats minorities and likes boisterous rallies goes
    5. Re:Teenagers? by dintech · · Score: 3, Funny

      Want a balloon Georgie? They all float down here!

    6. Re:Teenagers? by Techman83 · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Older storm water drains in Australia are basically big open drains. In my home town (small country town in Victoria) they are about 5 or 6 metres wide and 2 metres deep, which on a day with heavy rain will fill up completely. I spent many many hours exploring them as a kid. Some areas are underground, but it wasn't too bad, being that it was a small town you could essentially just keep walking and you'd find another open section within a kilometre.

      --
      # cat /dev/mem | strings | grep -i cat
      Damn, my RAM is full of cats. MEOW!!
    7. Re:Teenagers? by bluefoxlucid · · Score: 4, Funny

      Little girls are deceptive, manipulative, and just a tad bit sexual (remember being 12 and completely naive, and having a 10 year old asking to see your thing? But you were still terrified of girls when you were 15? Yeah...). If by "Mature" you mean "Turn into a glowing pile of pure, radioactive evil," I must concur.

      --
      Support my political activism on Patreon.
    8. Re:Teenagers? by Anachragnome · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Boy, that brings back memories.

      When I was a kid, living in San Jose, CA., a friend and I discovered a storm drain that dumped into one of the numerous creeks in the area. It was rather large, large enough for a 12 yr old to walk upright in. It also had no grating on it at all. You could quite simply walk right into it. Being the adventurous kids we were, we did so, only to find that it went so far that we had to go back home and get flashlights in order to go any further. After about 3 hours of wandering around, we found a ladder that led to a small platform (no grues) and a door. An unlocked door. It led to a service room in the Eastridge Shopping Mall, bypassing all security measures the mall had in place. We wandered the mall (it was late at night) for a short time until we realized that there was a patrolling security guard on the premises.

      This was the start of a long and interesting hobby of exploring any dark, and supposedly off-limits, entrances to the underworld. (Feel free to twist that statement to whatever your sick mind wishes...)

    9. Re:Teenagers? by Anachragnome · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I suppose you could say we did the same thing. A club, that is. We just didn't advertise it, primarily because we didn't want all the access routes we discovered bricked over.

      To date, my favorite is the turn-of-the-century storm drain system carved out of the sandstone underneath Santa Cruz, CA. Some of them tunnels actually led into the basements of houses (I suspect they were once used in the 20's for rum-running), some right up against the floorboards of houses (once heard a conversation right through them), and some into long-forgotten rooms that still had old bottles and such in them. One of these rooms had a desk and chair in it, even though the tunnel was too small for the desk to fit through. Crazy. Must have been assembled in situ.

      These tunnels were all hand-carved (the pick-marks still visible), and more then one led to a dead end--the tunnel was filled with beach sand, obviously meaning they led to the ocean, yet we never found an entrance/exit tunnel near the beach. We found 4 different entrances, yet not a single mention of these tunnels were to be found in any historical documents I researched, nor could I find a soul that knew about them besides us. As a matter of fact, most people didn't even believe us.

      As evidence, I usually gave up the location of ONE of these tunnels (Under the small bridge just below Ocean View park, there is a pipe hanging from the bridge. Crawl out along it, over the river, and you will see the entrance on the far side of the pipe). It is a really short tunnel and just a very small taste of what is actually under Santa Cruz. The rest go with me to the grave as they are most definitely NOT safe.

      A word of caution. NEVER enter tunnels like this during high-tide, before or during a rain storm or if you have any common-sense(we seriously lacked in this dept. back then). They are ALL UN-reinforced, sandstone is quite unstable and we discovered several cave-ins.

      Entering ANY storm-drain system before,during or even long after rain is just plain suicidal. Don't fucking do it.

    10. Re:Teenagers? by Anachragnome · · Score: 4, Interesting

      "As a matter of fact, most people didn't even believe us."

      This. The two historians I DID talk to about it refused to believe me even after I gave them the exact directions I gave in my post. One straight up called me a liar. Go figure.

      I also told them about a cabin in the woods made entirely of huge slabs of Redwood bark, complete with a river rock altar and built into the entrance of a burned out, but still alive, Redwood tree. You can tell it is from the same era as the tunnels since the living Redwood tree that it is built against has grown around it. Didn't believe me.

      I also told them about an underground, two-room apartment built into a hillside in the Santa Cruz mountains that appeared to be built in the exact same fashion as these tunnels (pick marks and swing patterns matched exactly), one that stood less then 200 yards from the Redwood Bark Cabin.
      Didn't believe me.

      I suspect that the person that built the 2-room apartment not only worked on the tunnel system, but also worked on the two railroad tunnels(less then a mile away) that were built around the same time as the tunnels. All have the same pick marks in them. Since the apartment is between the railroad tunnels and the city of Santa Cruz, I believe one of the workers simply built himself a temporary home.

      Sometimes people simply refuse to understand, or believe, what is obviously real and true (kind of like the moron in another thread I responded to), for whatever reasons.

      I've long since learned there is no point in trying to convince them otherwise (although I sometimes forget...like the moron in another thread I responded to). At some point, you just give up.

  4. Stupid girls. by FlyingSquidStudios · · Score: 3, Funny

    Everyone knows that if you need to call for rescue, you use twitter.

    --
    http://twitter.com/OLDTELEGRAM
  5. Instead Of Getting Help by Ukab+the+Great · · Score: 3, Funny

    They might have gotten 112,076 "fans of teenage girls trapped in wells."

  6. Actually... by machinelou · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Actually, my wife was stuck in an elevator once and while her cellphone couldn't maintain a signal well enough to call out, she could text and email.

    1. Re:Actually... by petes_PoV · · Score: 4, Funny

      That's nothing. I was trapped in a lift once. I had to wait 15 years for mobile phones to be developed and deployed before I could call for help.

      --
      politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
    2. Re:Actually... by sakdoctor · · Score: 4, Funny

      That's nothing. I fell into an experimental cryogenics pod and was frozen for 1000 years, and had to wait for time travel to be developed, so that I could travel back in time and tell Matt Groening my life story, so he could make it into a popular cartoon series thus preventing a spacial anomaly that would have destroyed the alpha quadrant.

  7. Not too far-fetched by Sefi915 · · Score: 4, Insightful
    My cell phone, with Sprint as a service, gets less than crappy reception inside my office. However, I have no problems getting and sending text messages quickly.

    So it's not unthinkable to imagine that they had crap for voice reception but had no issues with a web connection, especially given that they were inside a storm drain.

    Oh, and when did a ten-year-old and twelve-year-old become teenagers? (The answer: "not yet".)

  8. Darwin by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    Darwin at work, foiled by luck.

  9. conservative by TheSHAD0W · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I will admit, silly as it may sound, contacting rescuers via messaging in a non-critical emergency situation may not be a bad idea. It's more friendly battery-wise, where you may not get a chance to recharge a cell phone (in the sewers, for instance); and it can be less ambiguous than speech and more easily reviewed (although all the OMGs and missing vowels might prove problematic.

  10. ballsack conundrum by i.r.id10t · · Score: 4, Funny

    Much like the famous "ballsack conundrum" thread on fark... I'm stuck to my chair. I'm so very scared. Help. (Details In thread) "Need help soonish..."

    --
    Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos
  11. Cry for help on Twitter by Tetsujin · · Score: 5, Funny

    Everyone knows that if you need to call for rescue, you use twitter.

    "HELP ME! I am stuck and in real trouble and hurt real bad! I think my leg is broken, and I am losing a lot of blood. You can find me at"

    --
    Bow-ties are cool.
  12. Re:Overshadowing the fact by Tetsujin · · Score: 3, Funny

    What were they doing in a storm water drain....?

    Searching for the Ninja Turtles, probably.

    --
    Bow-ties are cool.
  13. You gotta love the IT Crowd by goodEvans · · Score: 3, Funny

    Moss: Subject: Fire. Dear Sir/Madam, I am writing to inform you of a fire that has broken out on the premises of 123 Cavendon Road... no, that's too formal.
    [deletes text, starts again] Fire - exclamation mark - fire - exclamation mark - help me - exclamation mark. 123 Cavendon Road. Looking forward to hearing from you. Yours truly, Maurice Moss.
    [sigh of relief]

  14. Re:Age requirement for Facebook by clone53421 · · Score: 3, Informative

    No, you just have to say you are.

    --
    Alexander Peter Kristopeit bought his basement from his mommy for one dollar.
  15. Re:Silly Silly Questions... by Chris+Mattern · · Score: 5, Insightful

    To me, teenager always meant 10 and up.

    "Or, as we say around here, zeroteen!"

    To me, teenager always meant 13 to 19, because, y'know, those are the numbers that actually have *teen* in them.

  16. Stupidity isn't limited to the Facebook Generation by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    My stepmother was alone in the house and fell, breaking her tailbone. She managed to painfully drag herself across the room to the phone, which she used not to call 911, but to call a friend of hers from church. When she got that person's machine, she left a message asking her friend to pray for her. She then lay on the floor moaning until my brother happened to stop by the house and discover her several hours later. I never found out whether or not her friend got the message and prayed for her.

    --Posted anonymously because the stupid burns.

  17. Australia's 911 number by 1u3hr · · Score: 5, Funny
    000 (Australia's 911 number)

    WTF? 000 is Australia's EMERGENCY number. Would you also say "they drive on the left side of the road (Australia's right)"? In China thay use chopsticks (Chinese knives and forks)?".

    There is a point at which explaining by Yankie analogies just makes it more confusing. Try to realise that everyone in the world does not speak English, play baseball, use Fahrenheit.... I'm sure most of the readers here actually can cope with that, and you won't bamboozle the ones who AREN'T American either.

  18. Insightful? by heritage727 · · Score: 5, Funny

    Well, you have to be 13 to have a Facebook account. They have Facebook accounts. So they must be 13, and hence teenagers, even if they're only 10 and 12. Seems perfectly clear to me.

    I like to be modded up as much as the next person, but Insightful? Jeez, I was trying for Funny.

  19. Re:I can believe it by TechyImmigrant · · Score: 3, Informative

    SMS uses messages on management connections that have stronger, more redundant error correction than the voice bearers. This is why in marginal signal situations, you can text but not talk.

    --
    Evil people are out to get you.