This Five-Year-Old Boy Was Left Home Alone — His 911 Call Had Everyone Cracking Up

A call to 911 is rarely a laughing matter, but for Sara, a humble dispatcher working the evening shift, a call from one Elijah Peterson was almost enough to have her on the floor. 

If you have toddlers at home, you probably must have learned by now that those chaps don’t mix well with phones. After a protracted period of a toddler having access to a phone, the phone often turns up either damaged or some unmonitored calls would have been made. 

911 dispatcher calls are not typically something to laugh at. Sara took her job very seriously but she just couldn’t help herself from cracking up when she received an unexpected call from a 5-year-old boy.

It was just a regular shift. During one of her calls, her colleagues watched with concern as she struggled to maintain a straight face. As they say, the more you try not to laugh, the harder it becomes. But, as the conversation continued, suppressing all that laughter became almost impossible!

911 dispatchers can be generally said to have a tough job. So, they are trained to accommodate all the trauma and stress they may encounter while discharging their responsibilities. 

Once the call was over and her colleagues had time to take a break together, she played back the call and put it on the speaker for everyone to hear. Of course, they all exploded in laughter at what they were hearing. Sara later took the call for her friends to hear, as well.

5-year-old Elijah was a happy kid! He spent a lot of time playing outside and spending time with his friends.

Five-year-old Elijah often napped in the late afternoon, and today was no different. After a few hours of play, he was ready to slip into slumberland. As he did most days, his father tucked him into bed. It didn’t take long for Elijah to fall away into dreamland.

A few quiet hours later, Elijah opened his eyes. He couldn’t hear anything in the other parts of the house, probably because his dad was trying to keep everything quiet while he slept. He slipped from his bed onto the floor, ready to eat his favorite food.

Elijah walked around the room and called out for his father, but he got no answer. He checked the bathroom, then his father’s room. Maybe he was sleeping too? Nope. He couldn’t find him. He even looked out of the windows to see if he had gone outside for some reason.

Like most other toddlers, Elijah was used to always having someone around. It was abnormal for him to be left all by himself. So, whenever he wants something to eat or drink, he needs someone to fix it. 

Elijah grew increasingly confused. He was only 5 years old so he had not been left on his own before. Lots of questions crossed his mind.

At first, Elijah thought his father must be playing a joke on him or some prank. That didn’t sound right—his father hated jokes and hated even minor pranks. He disliked playing any game at all, especially with Elijah. He was never any fun.

The novelty of having the whole house to himself had already worn off. Elijah wondered if he had seen his family for the last time. He panicked, running from room to room, and began to cry. He was all alone. He had no idea what to do. He was only five, after all.

Nothing happened. It was as though time had locked in place. Not only that but he was locked in the house, as well. One of his first ideas was to ask his friendly neighbor, the one with the cute dog, for help, but the door wouldn’t budge. 

There was one phone number he could dial, one that his mother had reminded him of whenever she was teaching him what to do in a scary situation. Plus, it was even short enough that he could remember: “911!” 

At the 911 call center, the staff was having a typical day. Only a few calls had gone through. Of course, quiet shifts are not the norm, but they are a good sign. After all, nobody calls 911 because they’re having a good day. 

Sara, a dispatcher at the 911 call center, picked up Elijah’s mortified call. When she picked up the line, she was taken aback. She could only hear silence and soft sobbing. Whoever was making the call was crying. 

As a dispatcher, Sara had been trained for these situations and had answered many distressed calls. She put her experience to practice with this call just like any other.

Sara asked Elijah basic questions and asked him to remain calm. The little boy assured her he was alright but was afraid his dad wasn’t around. She was concerned about the boy’s well-being and would do anything to help.  

Sara was very professional about the call and took notes of the conversation. She was careful to catch all of the details, reading between the lines and the silly way Elijah was telling her about the events of the evening. 

Elijah’s funny comments were enough to make anyone laugh, but Sara remained professional. She felt that the child was not in danger but needed to go through all the proper processes to ensure his safety.

The demeanor of young Elijah, and his ability to see the silver lining on every dark cloud tells a lot of the kind of adult he would likely grow into. Naturally, the average youngster would have gone to emotional tatter after getting the first hint of his parent’s separation.

Besides being a wisecrack, accidental or otherwise, Elijah was smart to call 911. He was alone and locked inside his house. There was no imminent danger, but a child of that age shouldn’t be left unattended for that long. He was scared and wanted his parents. 

The officers kindly kept Elijah company and helped him calm down. He (and the police) were well entertained, and the five-year-old even forgot how upset he was before. But if the boy’s father or mother didn’t show up within a few hours, they would have to bring him to the station. 

Everyone involved was thrilled to see Elijah was calm, safe, and unharmed. Sara felt great relief that the police had arrived and were in the house with the little boy.

To take her mind off Elijah’s last question about “Santa Claus’ farts,” Sara took to the internet to learn about his father—but mostly to remind herself of the seriousness of her job and distract herself from the giggle rising in her chest. 

Sara was looking for a tonic to the boy’s eccentric stand-up routine, and she had found it. As she looked through his profile, she noticed a pattern in his posts and photos. There were a lot of worrying thoughts, and most of them sounded serious. Their severity peaked when he mentioned Elijah’s mother.

While it appeared that Elijah was a playful, happy kid, she knew that divorce could be very painful and difficult on a kid, especially one of Elijah’s age.

Between the moments when Elijah was asking the police officers, “whose gun is bigger,” and “where do chicken nuggets come from? Chicken mountains?” Sara read up on the breakup from his father’s perspective. It was a troubling read.

Going off his posts, it seemed his father would have created more problems for the family than he would have solved. He seemed like the dramatic type. Not dangerous, but he didn’t seem to have any filter when talking about his relationship and family online. 

Although she couldn’t ask Elijah about his family’s situation, she asked him to confirm some things. And he did, even going as far as to call his father a “silly billy” for his behavior. After that, he acted like everything was alright—except for his missing chicken nuggets.

Given his father’s grim, worrying posts on Facebook, Sara thought it would be best if Elijah were brought to the station. The officers agreed that it would be better if they could look after him at the station. 

After confirming several details about the situation with Elijah, Sara knew that their conversation was not only hilarious, it might help protect him in the future. Since the end of her shift was coming up, she thought about asking her supervisor if she could drop off the recording at the station and meet Elijah personally.

The end of her shift was coming up anyway, so he didn’t see the harm in letting Sara go a few minutes early. He figured it might come in useful for the police. Plus, he had been put in a funny mood thanks to the recording. 

Sara punched the station’s address into her Maps app and headed over. While she went, she listened to the recorded call a few times in her car, just laughing to herself about Elijah’s chicken nugget obsession and the “unfair no hair” bit about his father.

Sara’s phone was lit up with messages from her work’s group chat. They had all heard back the strange conversation she had shared with the five-year-old—they couldn’t get enough of listening to it! A dull late afternoon shift had turned into quite the stir, it seemed.

Sara had to take a minute to look at the messages on her phone. By the time she got inside the building, she had found they were busy processing the case. They hadn’t been able to reach Elijah’s father. It seemed that he had his phone off.

Sara found the officer in charge of finding a contact number for Elijah’s mother or father. She tried to explain that they probably wouldn’t get through to his dad, explaining that she had gone through his Facebook profile, being the person who picked up the 911 call. 

Sara told the officer about the recording. He downloaded a copy of the call, thanked her, then pointed her to the room where Elijah was waiting with a worker from child protection services. Sara made her way over to the room. 

Sara waited for a good moment to introduce herself—there wasn’t one because Elijah would jump from one topic to the next. But when he noticed her watching him, he stopped. She introduced herself as the lady on the phone. Elijah’s eyes brightened, and he ran over to her.

Sara was just glad that the five-year-old was still in high spirits despite everything that had happened. After she chatted with him and ensured that he felt at ease, Elijah went away to read a comic book. The woman from child protection services asked her to fill her in on what was happening.

Who was she, and why had she stopped by? After she had taken his hilarious but touching call to 911, she felt as though someone had to warn the officers about Elijah’s father’s emails. Sure, a call would have worked. 

The child protection services agent asked her how she managed to draw so much out of him. She had been gently trying to coax information about his family life out, but he didn’t want to talk about it. Even though he had described his father as a “silly billy,” it was clear that his father had been struggling to be a dad.

None of this was lost on Elijah, despite him being very young. Sara repeated what Elijah had told her, minus the rhyming jokes about his dad, his cooking ability, and his fashion sense, and the two of them began to see what had been happening.

The two women tried to explain that his father didn’t hate him. But when he asked when his father was, they couldn’t say. The child protection services agent asked him what life was like with his father at home. Elijah repeated what he had said about his father being a “mean silly billy” and “unfair with no hair.”

Elijah tried to make out like he didn’t mind being left to his own devices. He said he liked having the house to himself because he didn’t have to breathe his daddy’s farts all day. He didn’t even mind that nobody was coming to pick him up. Sara asked him if he ever wanted to talk to someone.

Although Elijah had Sara and the child protection services agent in stitches, it was clear that the situation was quite serious in his household. Elijah said that because his dad often ignored him, he spoke for him, promising to make him spaghetti pizza or chicken nugget burgers and to take him to Disneyland.

Sara looked at Elijah and wondered how anyone could ever have abandoned him. An officer came to the door and announced some good news: they managed to get into contact with his mother. She was coming to pick him up. Elijah seemed happy to hear this.

Why was Elijah with this man, given that he seemed so disturbed? His mom explained that when they split up, Elijah wanted to stay with his dad. His mom didn’t fight him—or for him—and her ex-husband seemed happy.

A few days later, Elijah’s call to 911 was all over the internet. Sara hadn’t put it up, but she suspected someone at work had leaked it. It even got so popular that Elijah’s dad heard about it. Naturally, he wasn’t happy about the recording. 

Complain as he might, Elijah’s father couldn’t get the satisfaction he was looking for—the only recourse he had would mean officially opening up a case—and he didn’t want anyone digging deeper. So he left a complaint with the 911 call center, and that was that.

Failed marriages are like a large dragon that has been unleashed on the modern world, and it is trashing its tail around and creating deep problems in our social structures.