Cellphones are Not Chew Toys and Other 911 Complaints

In the 23  years I have worked as a 911 operator the biggest change has been the huge increase in cellphone usage.  In 1990 when I started there were around 5 million cell phone users in the United States. Today over 203 million Americans have one. Many of them only have a cell phone.

As you can imagine this has made huge differences, both positive and negative, in the nature of my job,  Crimes and accidents are reported much more promptly, because the reporter doesn't have to find a land line phone to make the call.  The downside of this is that everyone who sees the accident or crime take place calls.  A car accident on the interstate can easily result in dozens of calls.  On the other end of the dozens of calls are typically 4-6 people answering the calls.  Some smaller departments have only one or two people call taking.  (So if you do call 911 and get a "Thanks, We have it" click, don't be offended.)

But at least these people are trying to report actual police, fire, or paramedic emergencies. A bigger factor, and bigger addition to our workload are accidental 911 calls.  The two biggest menaces are pocket dials and little kids.

Pocket dialers (also known among over tasked dispatchers as "Butt Dialers" ) generally of course have no clue what they are doing. This can frequently be seen by the nature of the calls we overhear.  I cannot tell you how many domestic fights and drug deals I have eavesdropped on.  My favorite though are the pedestrian dialers--people who are walking with their cell phones in their pocket.  As I have said before, the sound is frequently similar to that of people walking through crunchy fall leaves, if you had a microphone right in the middle of the leaves, and are listening on highly sensitive headphones to the resulting noises.

But perhaps the most time consuming unintentional  calls are the ones from small children. We often take calls from young children in the middle of emergency situations.  Frequently they are actually far calmer and more accurate than their adult counterparts.  But these children have learned about calling 911 and have learned when and how to do it.  Its their younger (sometimes much younger) brothers and sisters who drive us crazy some days.

Not a day goes by at work that I don't take at least one, and usually more, calls from a child that is too young to talk, let alone use a phone.  Sometimes the baby babbles in my ear. Other times they say hi over and over. Often we try to get them to take the phone to an adult, which often results in a conversation like this.

Me: Take the phone to Mommy.
Baby: Mommy phone.
Mom: Oh isn't that cute, he thinks he making phone calls.

Understand it's not the child who annoys us, its the clueless adult.

Sometimes we get an adult when we call back, who usually laughs and says "That was my baby, playing with the phone."  There is usually a note of pride in the parental voice at their child's "accomplishment".

Sometimes we are told that the phone was an old one, or one that didn't have any minutes on it, so it had been given to the child to play with.  Actually, however, the FCC requires all working cell phones (and landlines with a dial tone)to be able to call 911, regardless of available service.

Frequently things are made even easier for the pre-verbal caller because someone has programmed 911 into speed dial.  This never makes sense to  me. Is punching 9-1-1 into the phone such an arduous task that people must save yourself two extra button punches?  Are they afraid they will forget the number  in an emergency?

But there is an even bigger question that I muse upon frequently, while listening to the prattle of  these small ones.  Why the heck does this kid have access to a cell phone in the first place?

When my kids were little we didn't have a cell phone, but I kept the dialer phones high out of reach.  This was partly because I didn't want the embarrassment at work of a child of mine calling 911. I never would have heard the end of it at work. But it was also because I didn't think it was a safe thing to play with.  It wasn't a toy.  The kids did have toy phones, just as they had toy keys and toy remote controls. This was true when I was young also.  We weren't allowed to play with the house's phone, radio, stereo,TV dials and so forth. They were too valuable to let small kids handle.  Has technology become so inexpensive a disposable that nothing is to be kept out of reach of children? I don't understand why people would allow a child to play with an often expensive cellphone when a toy version can be picked up at any store for less than ten dollars.  It isn't just the accidental dialing issue.  Some phones are small enough to be choking hazards. Even if the phone isn't small enough the battery often is. Battery swallowing is frequent cause of both choking and poisoning in small children.



This is not a chew toy
keep out of reach of children 

No Cell Phones Allowed clipart
from Clker.com

By the way, the  9-1-1 operator's life is not about to get any easier either.  The next phase of 9-1-1 will allow texting of messages and photos.  I can't wait to see what kind of pictures will be coming our way.


Thank you for reading this public service announcement.  We now would like to return you to your regularly scheduled blog reading. We  particularly recommend the "I Don't Like Mondays" Blog hop at Mod Mom Beyond IndieDom. Check it out.

Things your 911 operator would tell you if anyone were asking

How often have you watched a crime show on TV and saw the program jump from the commission of the crime to the arrival of the police? Have you ever wondered how the police knew to show up? Unless it is a very small town the phone was not answered by the police officer who came out to the scene of the crime. It probably wasn't even a police officer answering the phone. It probably a civilian, usually female, who goes by the title like Dispatcher, Communications person, Call taker or 911 operator. Its a hard, challenging, rewarding, infuriating job. 911 operators are the invisible link that make Public Safety work. Here's a little information about what goes on in our world.

Most dispatch centers have anywhere from 2 to 10 people answering the phone at any given time. In bigger departments some are assigned to taking calls while others are assigned to dispatching the various services. In smaller departments one or two people may do everything. Centers are staffed 24 hrs a day, weekends and holidays also.The trend has been towards combining services...police,fire and ems together, also towards combining multiple departments, sometimes whole counties into one center.

We are often called 911 operators, but in most departments we take all incoming calls for police, fire and ems. Therefore the cardiac arrest call that we gave CPR instructions for, or the bank robbery call, can be immediately followed by a call about a junk car on the street, a loose dog, or loud music. We have no way of knowing what will be on the other end of the line. Unfortunately in some ways 911 is almost too successful, everyone knows how to call it and they don't have the time or the capacity to look up other numbers. Also, unlike many 411 services we don't charge for calls. I frequently take calls that begin either "this isn't an emergency but I didn't know the non emergency number" or "my phone is out of minutes and this is the only number I can call".

One of the most stressful aspects of our job is that we usually don't learn how things turn out after we get off the phone, especially on medical calls. The very hardest calls for most of us to deal with involve children, or people we know. Sooner or later we all get one and it can be traumatic. Every dispatcher I know has few calls they carry around with them. that they can't forget.

I have been doing this job for more than 20 years, right thru the proliferation of cell phones into the hands of virtually everyone. Cell phones can be lifesavers, but they are also a huge nuisance for us. For one thing it means that every time anything happens we have not one or two people calling, but frequently dozens of calls. They at least are calling about actual crimes. There are bigger headaches with cell phones.

All working cell phones call 911, even if they have no service or minutes. Many people do not realize this and let their children play with old cell phones. Most children these days are taught how to call 911 at preschool. I have had many conversations with 2 yr olds who are not really verbal and who don't quite get the meaning of "take the phone to a grownup". Older children are more aware that they are actually calling 911. I actually had a child take the phone to mom and say "I called 911" only to hear the parent bragging to others in the room about their child's great imagination, or even tell them to stop making things up the phone doesn't work. On the other hand I have heard really young kids do amazing things over the phone in actual emergencies.

Even more annoying however are the calls no one (intentionally) makes. This has gotten worse in the era of touch phones, which really facilitate pocket dialing, to use the polite term. Half my 911 calls in a given day are from no one at all, except the inside of their jacket or jeans or purse. The sound of people walking with their pocket dialing cellphones in their pocket can be very loud, it sounds kind of like crunching thru a huge pile of fall leaves. .

Another misconception people have about emergency services is that if they call 911 they will somehow get a faster police response simply because they called 911 instead of calling the non emergency line. Police departments do not maintain separate 911 cruisers to respond to calls that come over those lines. All calls, however received, go into the same lineup, and are taken in order of priority. A homicide or a robbery is high priority no matter how we learn about it. A barking dog or loud music is not.

I have heard profanity on phone calls that the MPAA would give a NC17 rating to. I am not talking about major emergencies. Its understandable people using excessive obscenities in life and death situations. I'm talking about routine non life threatening calls. I have taken calls about dogs and loud music in which enough F bombs were dropped to make Bully look G rated. And I won't even get into the things I have been called. Fortunately before I did this job I worked in a city rec center, so at least I am no longer being cussed out in person.

There are compensations of course. Most dispatch jobs are covered by civil service so there is seniority and benefits.There is usually a lot of job security as dispatcher centers are frequently understaffed. Voluntary overtime is almost always available, however there is also involuntary overtime in a lot of centers when not enough people can be persuaded to take it voluntarily. Not knowing when we go into work what time we will leave work is another stress factor.

911 operators are considered emergency personnel in most cities, they are under no strike clauses, and subjected as previously mentioned to non voluntary holdovers, but are classed and paid as clerical personnel. They are seldom noticed unless something goes wrong or a mistake is made, then they are viral on YouTube. But every time someone calls for help and gets it, a call taker was involved in the chain of assistance.

Like most other professions we have a "day", National Telecomunicators Day. Its April 11th (411). Guess what day was "our day" until 2001?  Police and Fire call takers and dispatchers were unsung heroes that day too. Frequently they deal with public emergencies while not being able to find out what is going on with their own homes, their own families.

Its a job with lots of ups and downs. And there are a lot of funny and stupid calls we take. And there are a lot of stories with satisfying, rewarding outcomes. But they are stories for another day.