Rescuers duped by ‘woman’ dangling from cliff after 911 calls

Rescuing for dummies.

California emergency services were flabbergasted after attempting to save a “woman” dangling precariously from a cliff in Santa Barbara — only to discover that it was actually a mannequin movie prop.

The literal cliffhanger occurred October 4 after a passerby on the beach called 911 at 3:49 p.m. to report a person hanging 30 feet “down a cliff above Hope Ranch Beach,” the Santa Barbara County Fire Department reported.

Rescue agencies responded by dispatching a full force of utility terrain vehicles, fire engines, trucks and even a drone to the scene.

However, in place of a woman in peril, the responders found a realistic dummy from a film shoot that had occurred several days earlier, per the report.

Suffice it to say, social media had a field day with the doll-ppelganger gaffe.

Quipped one Twitter wit, “What a dummy getting stuck on the cliff!” Another joked that the prop was discovered at the set of “Cliffhanger 2.”

And one virtual screenwriter gave their thoughts on how the scenario should’ve played out in a hypothetical film. “Oh she’s gonna fall… everyone looks down at her assumed point of impact,” the harrowing tale begins.

“But NO!” it continues. “She’s miraculously grabbed ahold of a tree down below with amazing grip strength and is holding tight!! She gets rescued by a crash test dummy. They kiss as the credits roll. The end.”

While the situation proved a hilarious false alarm, the fire department reiterated that it’s always “better to call [911] than not,” they wrote.

This isn’t the first time first responders have responded to the scene of a “dummy in distress.” This past June, emergency rescue divers in Japan were flummoxed after a “drowning woman” turned out to be a floating, life-size sex doll.