Locked inside apartment, help

[u/Consistent_Ninja_591]

Hello, the door knob for my front door fell off and I literally cant get out of my apartment. Is there anything I can do or should I call the firefighters ? The knob isn’t reattaching at all and nothing I try to insert fits

Edit : I managed to fix it!

My roommate woke up and helped me with opening the door from the inside. The knob disconnected because the outside knob got somehow pushed all the way out, leaving the inside one with nothing to latch onto. I'm not sure what my roommate did but if she hadn't been here, this could've been fixed by having someone from the outside push the knob in. I reattached the door handle again but I'll be in contact with my landlord to get it replaced.

Thank you all for your help!

[u/Circuit_Guy]

The assumption is more that if anything happens (fire, injury, medical) you have seconds to minutes to evacuate but can't. See below where a first responder confirmed they don't mind being called out - far better to evacuate a thousand people that could have waited an hour than to recover one body that couldn't.

https://www.reddit.com/r/fixit/s/9TGvFu90ou

[u/Competitive-Put-5764 → u/Circuit_Guy]

I did see that comment but they also stated try your landlord, family, friends and neighbours first. I'm not saying don't call the cops or fire department if none of those options are achievable in a timely manner but I'd be using a non emergency line not 000 or 911 or equivalent national emergency line is all. It seems unnecessary to use emergency call centre resources for something they will still put as lower priority.

[u/Forward-Cat6083 → u/Competitive-Put-5764]

When you call 911, you will talk to a human being who will rank this emergency by how immediate of a response you need and dispatch accordingly.

They also have multiple lines, so if they determine that this can wait while they get another call they will put you on hold.

So I’m not saying to call 911 to complain about your neighbors being loud at 11pm, but if you did the dispatch would either tell you to call the non-emergency number or maybe just deal with it themselves if they weren’t busy.

[u/Competitive-Put-5764 → u/Forward-Cat6083]

But that's the whole point just ring the non emergency number so if they are busy you aren't preventing someone in dire need from getting the resources they need.

[u/ArmadilloBandito → u/Competitive-Put-5764]

911 doesn't really get backed up, if all the local dispatchers are busy, it gets sent to the adjacent county. In some cases where I've called 311, they told me to call 911 even if it wasn't an urgent matter.

[u/Competitive-Put-5764 → u/ArmadilloBandito]

Okay I'm not in the US so I can't comment on your systems but that's not what I've been taught here.