Thursday, February 7, 2013
911 Pocket-Dialing” Can be a Real Horror Show @vicpdcanada #yyj #cellphones
Victoria, BC – When VicPD Communications centre
staff received a distressed mother’s 911 call describing screams and loud
noises from her daughter’s cellular phone, they sprang into action. “We
did a ‘check welfare call’ to the young woman’s cell phone and learned that she
had inadvertently ‘purse-dialed’ her mother while she was at a horror movie,”
Tanya Patterson VicPD Communications Centre’s Training Coordinator said. “Her
mother called 911 when she heard terrified screams and unusual noises”.
“Pocket dialing” and abandoned 911 calls are heavily taxing
police resources so far this year. Since January 1, VicPD Communications
Centre staff have received 828 calls to 911 with no one on the other end
of the line requiring assistance.
“Communications Centre staff follow up on every 911 call
that is abandoned,” said Gwynne Maranduk, Communications Centre Supervisor.
“These sorts of calls mean lots of resources being tied up when there’s
no emergency.”
Occasionally, Communications Centre staff end up listening
to people singing in the car, unaware that their private concert is being
broadcast to our operators as they have inadvertently called 911.
The two main sources of these abandoned 911 calls are pocket
dialing and parents letting their children play with older phones that no
longer have subscriber service.
“Many parents don’t know that all cellphones with power will
dial 911, whether connected to a network or not,” says VicPD spokesperson Mike
Russell. “If you give your child an old cellphone to play with, take the
battery out. If you don’t, your child may end up calling us.”
Abandoned 911 calls is not just a Victoria issue. The
British Columbia Association of Chiefs of Police (BCACP) will be discussing the
matter at their meeting later this month.
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