Dispatchers see increase in accidental 911 calls

MT. PLEASANT — Henry County Dispatchers continue to see an increase in accidental 911 calls and ask the public to stay on the line if they do call 911 by accident.

“We’re definitely seeing an uptick in our 911 hang up calls,” Sheriff Rich McNamee said.

According to Henry County Dispatcher Janae Body, from January-June 2022 approximately 31.4% of calls received were misdials or hung ups. From January-June 2023 these made up approximately 48.3% of calls.

These numbers work out to about 696 of 2217 attributed to misdials in a six month in 2022 and 1205 of 2497 for six months in 2023.

“So, now we’re at almost half of our 911 calls,” she said. “Obviously we’re getting a lot of calls.”

When a hang-up 911 call comes into dispatch, Henry County Dispatcher Laura Ruby urges the caller to stay on the line.

“We don’t want them to hang up,” she said. “ … We have technology now that can send a call that hits 911 almost immediately, even though you’ve already hung up the phone.”

Recently, Body tested just how quickly their services can pick up a 911 call by dialing on her own phone.

“I called 911 on my phone,” she said. “I hit the green button and the red button pops up right after you hit the green button. As soon as the red button came up on my phone, I hit the red button. So, we’re talking like half a second before I pushed the red button, and my number already called 911.”

Body said her phone didn’t even need to ring before dispatch was made aware of the call.

According to Body and Ruby, oftentimes people don’t even realize they’re calling 911.

Some of these calls happen because of emergency services shortcut features.

“A few years ago, my phone, I was mowing and my phone fell out of my pocket and hit the ground,” Ruby shared. “I didn't know it dialed 911 and I just put it back in my pocket”

“Well, my phone continued to call, and someone in dispatch answered and doesn’t get an answer from me and hangs up, but it still continued to call until I did something on my phone to stop it,” she explained. “So, one of the city operators showed up at my house and checked on me and tells me my phone is calling 911.”

Ruby says she then looked at her phone and saw that it was still calling.

Along with staying on the line in case of misdialing 911, Henry County Sheriff’s Office encourages the public to consider turning off their Emergency Services shortcut features, if they feel safe to do so.

According to Apple Support, iPhones 8 and later models emergency services feature will begin to activate after pressing down and holding the side and volume button.

This feature begins initiation on iPhone 7 or earlier by rapidly pressing the side or top button five times.

According to the National Emergency Number Association, emergency call services are activated on Google devices by rapidly pressing the power button five times.

According to Body and Ruby, this is activated on Samsung devices by pressing the side button three to four times.

These can be easily activated by placement in cupholders or pockets and children, even on phones without service.

Ruby said she experienced this recently when she received approximately 18 calls from the same number.

“It came from a 911 only number, though, which you cannot call back,” she shared. “I could tell it was kids playing on the phone.”

According to Ruby there is a button which can be used to track the actual location of these phones, however, in this instance, the kids kept hanging up the phone making it difficult to use.

“Finally, by the last one, I was able to get [the feature] to go to the second phase where it maps their location,” Ruby said. “I then found the owner’s address and called them.”

When Ruby asked if they had grandkids over that day that might be playing with an old phone, they confirmed her suspicions.

According to Body, staying on the line can make the difference between one minute’s worth of work and five minutes’ worth of work.

“If they hang up, we're going to be trying to call them back, and then we'll keep trying to call them back, or we're going to send somebody to the location that that phone pings to if we were able to get it,” Ruby said.

“So, what we're going to do is we're going to make a call for service for it,” she explained. “Meaning, we're going to get some information that we need to put into our system. We're going to call that person back, and we're going to ask them ‘what is the location of your emergency? This is Henry County 911 we’re just checking to see if you’re OK.’”

All this extra work happens all while the dispatcher is handling every other call coming through the dispatch center.

“On a normal day, one dispatcher working an eight-hour shift alone is having to deal with the multiple accidental 911s, the radio traffic, and multiple phone calls. So, that one person does everything,” Ruby said.

In addition to staying on the line, disabling emergency call shortcuts, and answering callbacks, parents can help prevent additional misdials by educating their children.

“I would say that as soon as your kids are old enough to walk and talk, you should start talking to them about dialing 911, especially when you see them imitating a phone call on a play phone or an old cellphone,” McNamee said.

According to McNamee this could look like showing them 911 on the phone, talking to them about what is and isn’t an emergency, and encouraging them to stay on the line if they accidentally call.

Comments: AnnaMarie.Ward@southeastiowaunion.com