Dailing for Darwin

In the course of trying to straighten out medical bills and file a claim (see My spring break) I was on the phone for about two hours this morning calling medical offices.
Never did I get straight through to a person, instead I got a voice mail matrix that promised to speed up my access to information. It never did.
Each recording started out by saying "if this is a medical emergency, please hang up and call 9-1-1."
I remember when there was no 9-1-1 system and a massive public education campaign was conducted as 9-1-1 became the standard across the nation. Police cars and fire engines still promote 9-1-1 and I am sure that dialing 9-1-1 is taught in elementary schools.
Each time I heard this recording I tried to imagine a person in the midst of an emergency looking up a phone number in the phone book and dialing the seven (or ten) digits necessary, then hearing a recording saying they should call 9-1-1 instead.
"Shoot. I could have dialed three digits everyone knows instead of looking up the phone number and dialing the doctor's office directly. Darn. What's this? We don't need 9-1-1 anymore because Mommy's neck ran out of blood?"
I was thinking that a child is not likely to be dialing a seven digit number for help. An adult might. But if they don't know enough to call 9-1-1 by now, do we really them to survive?
Evolution exists for a reason, and that's not just to piss off the Bible belt.