Back home in Lake County, more of my friends and neighbors are butt-dialing 911. The county’s 911 chief, April Denholm, tells accidental emergency callers they shouldn’t just hang up:
A lot of people think that if they just hang up fast enough then it won’t go through. And that’s really not how it works… If your phone dials 911 at all, we’re going to get it immediately, like before it really even rings on your end, because the way the 911 switches work, they’ll take what information they got from that very brief call and they’ll still send it through to us even though the call is disconnected [April Denholm, transcribed from audio, in “Lake County Still Dealing with a High Volume of 911 Accidental Calls,” KJAM, retrieved 2023.06.20].
Yes, speaking to the 911 operator may be embarrassing, but you’ll still save the dispatcher valuable time by staying on the line to say, “My bad, my butt”:
The biggest thing is stay on the line… I know its reflexive to just hang up quick, but don’t—stay on the line. If you did hang up, you can call us back on our non-emergency number [605-256-7620] and let us know that everything’s fine. most of the time, we’ll try to call you back, too [Denholm, retrieved 2023.06.20].
Check your settings, says Denholm—a lot of accidental calls are coming not from keesters but from phones with collision detection triggered by simple bumping around on the dashboard.
If our friend grudznick takes another hard fall and blow to the brain an Apple Watch could save him for more wonderful weeks of his commentary.
– If Apple Watch SE or Apple Watch Series 4 or later detects a hard fall while you’re wearing your watch, it taps you on the wrist, sounds an alarm, and displays an alert. You can choose to contact emergency services or dismiss the alert by pressing the Digital Crown, tapping Close in the upper-left corner, or tapping “I’m OK.”
Good info, Cory.