Hot Line Indeed: Florida Governor Accidentally Gives Number for Phone Sex Line Instead of Meningitis Line

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Florida Gov. Rick Scott addresses the audience at the 29th annual NALEO conference June 22, 2012 in Lake Buena Vista, Florida.

He got nine out of ten digits right, but there’s no credit for being almost correct in this case. When Florida Governor Rick Scott attempted to give out the phone number for a meningitis hotline at a Tuesday meeting, he mistakenly read the digits for a line that is, well, extra hot. Instead of announcing the Florida Department of Health’s toll-free meningitis hotline, Scott garbled the numbers and directed concerned callers to an adult phone-sex line, WUSF News reports.

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During a Florida Cabinet meeting that was monitored by WUSF, Scott intended to draw attention to a 24-hour service that has been set up in response to the nationwide fungal meningitis outbreak. Scott read off the 866 number, not realizing that he fumbled one of the digits. Callers who were seeking information on the deadly outbreak instead heard a woman’s purring voice saying: “Hello boys, thank you for calling me on my anniversary,” Reuters reports.

After WUSF posted the incorrect digits on its website, a reader called the news outlet to inform it of the embarrassing error. WUSF said it quickly alerted the governor’s office. A spokesperson from the office told Reuters that Scott had been made aware of the mistake during the meeting and indeed gave out the correct number about 20 minutes later.

Statistics from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention count 137 cases of the fungal meningitis strain, which is linked to tainted steroid injections, across 10 states. There have been 12 confirmed deaths. As of October 10, there have been six cases and one death in Florida.

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