According to British Columbia’s E-Comm dispatchers, hundreds of accidental 911 calls are received by their department every day.
In fact, approximately 20% of all incoming calls are said to be accidental.
While it may be an innocent mistake, the impact of accidental calls can be incredibly harmful, taking critical resources from people in emergencies who need them the most.
E-Comm call takers are trained to treat every 911 call as an emergency until they can determine otherwise.
“During each shift, a significant number of calls I receive on the emergency lines are misdials or hang-ups from people who have accidentally called 9-1-1,” confirmed Police Call Taker Roanne.
“Some pocket dials are obvious – we can hear people having fun, singing along to music while they’re driving or cheering at sporting events. But we still need to take the time to call people back and confirm there isn’t an emergency happening.”
Mistakes happen, however as accidental calls flooding emergency lines become a growing concern, E-Comm is working to educate the public on how to prevent this from happening and how to handle it if it does.
- Lock and store your cellphone carefully whenever it’s not in use.
- Know and understand the features on your cellphone and smartwatch. If you have “fall detection” or Emergency SOS functions enabled, become familiar with how they are triggered.
- Turn your device on airplane mode if children are playing with it.
- Do not program 9-1-1 into any phone.
- If you do call 9-1-1 by accident, do not hang up. We need you to stay on the line so that we can ensure your safety.
“Many times, people don’t even realize that they’ve called us by mistake and when they do, they instinctively hang up the phone,” said Police Call Taker Meegan.
“If you call 9-1-1 by accident, please don’t hang up. As our videos illustrate, sometimes it can be difficult to know if what we’re hearing on the other end of the line is an emergency situation or a misdial. The important thing is to stay on the line and let us know so that we can ensure you are safe.”
You can learn more about accidental calls here.
