Fairfax 911 Operators Fielding Calls from Pocket Dialing, Deactivated Phones
How you can help reduce accidental 911 calls.
http://oakton.patch.com/groups/politics-and-elections/p/fairfax-911-operators-fielding-calls-from-pocket-dialing-deactivated-phones_f19bf6aa

Fairfax County's 911 operators are spending a large amount of their time fielding calls — perhaps in the thousands each year — from people who are "pocket dialing" and from children playing with deactivated cell phones, Steve McMurrer, 911 systems administrator for Fairfax County, said Wednesday.

The county receives about a million 911 calls a year, but is not officially tracking how many of those are accidental calls, McMurrer said.

On Thursday, Patch called McMurrer to see if there are any hard figures on the number of accidental calls the county is dealing with after he characterized it as "thousands" of calls on Wednesday.

He said Thursday there are no hard figures and that the county is not tracking the number of accidental calls versus true emergency calls.

A report last year showed that 40 percent of the 911 calls that the city of New York was fielding were accidental calls.

A county commissioner from Delaware, Allan Angel, who is running for second vice president at the National Association of Counties this year, notes accidental calls to 911 as a top problem for county officials around the country:

•Growth of Text/video/social media 911 calls: Without significant financial resources, the growth of nonverbal communications will challenge the ability of emergency dispatch personnel to receive and respond appropriately in life-saving situations.

It's a problem that seems to be increasing in Fairfax County. "We get numerous calls from people who don't realize they've called 911," McMurrer said this week. "They're unintentional calls that typically consume quite a bit of effort; if we get that call, we attempt to speak to that person, we attempt to determine if they're in an emergency, we call them back if it hangs up to determine if there's an emergency, if it sounds like an emergency."

The county is fielding "thousands of those calls a month, calls we have to check out," he said Wednesday. On Thursday, he said he was uncertain of the number.

Another problem, he said, is that operators do not have an exact address when someone calls from a cell phone, if they need to send someone to check on whether a call is a true emergency. "Calls will come from an apartment building, we don't know what floor they're on."

The calls coming from deactivated cell phones are those that are no longer in service, but people have them sitting around their house, McMurrer said.

"Children find them, amuse themselves and get somebody to answer," he said.
According to the Federal Communications Commission, you can help reduce accidental 911 calls by:

•Locking keypads using the keypad lock feature. Keypad locks, some of which can be programmed to activate automatically, prevent a phone from responding to keystrokes until you unlock the keypad using a short combination of key presses.

•Turning off the 911 auto-dial feature, if your phone has one. To determine whether your phone has this feature and how to turn it off, check your user manual or the manufacturer’s website, or call your service provider.

I remember hearing something about this on Channel 8 news. Butt dialing 911? Hahhahahaha!

I bet 911 operators curse the day that cell phones became commonplace. Never mind butt dialing, how about when a lot of people see, say a bad car wreck? 911 probably gets dozens of calls about the same wreck.

Hi this is my butt calling, I'd like to report a fart!

My nephew did this years ago while playing with his mom's de activated cell phone. He called 911, got an answer, got scared, hung up and tossed the phone back into the toy box, kept playing. He was about 5.

Twenty minutes later, a FC police officer rolls up to the house and knocks on the dooor. Mom answered and kiddo had some 'splaining to do! Nephew literally wet his pants in fear. Never happened again.

glory bee Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> My nephew did this years ago while playing with
> his mom's de activated cell phone. He called 911,
> got an answer, got scared, hung up and tossed the
> phone back into the toy box, kept playing. He was
> about 5.
>
> Twenty minutes later, a FC police officer rolls up
> to the house and knocks on the dooor. Mom
> answered and kiddo had some 'splaining to do!
> Nephew literally wet his pants in fear. Never
> happened again.


They triangulated a 911 call in less than 20 minutes years ago? I call BS.

ok, smartass...maybe it was longer than 20 minutes, but the point was, my nephenw wet his pants.

glory bee Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> ok, smartass...maybe it was longer than 20
> minutes, but the point was, my nephenw wet his
> pants.


If he is related to you, he probably wets his pants frequently. Fist of all, the kid's mom is an idiot and so is the nephew. Second, there is no way the cop pinpointed the exact location of the call unless your nephew's house is located on an extremely large tract of land. Did he go door to door? That is the only way he could have located the source of the call.

this is the fault of the phone companies, the emergency call button is right next to the enter button on my HTC whatever model. its not illegal to make a mistake, tell the police to fuck off.

untitled #2:

emergency calls
made by mistake on cell phones
dialed by their rumps.