YAKIMA, Wash.-Yakima County’s emergency dispatch center, SunComm 911, saw over 300,000 total calls in 2023. Of those, over 20,000 or 15% were abandoned 911 calls where the caller didn’t stay on the line with the dispatchers,
Erica McNamara, SunComm’s Public Safety Communications Manager, says abandoned calls up despite a lower total call volume in 2022.
“Abandoned calls are a little bit different than a regular 911 call,” says McNamara. “People dial 911 and think that they’ve hung up, but the 911 system is designed to have a safety net.”
The safety net allows dispatchers to call back to the number if no one responders to the call. McNamara says oftentimes, people won’t answer when SunComm calls back, thinking it’s a spam call.
“You don’t usually pick up a line that you don’t know the number,” says the Public Safety Communications Manager. “So, we end up having to text that person to make sure they’re okay before we can close that call out.”
SunComm says 2023’s call volumes may be impacted by an update to Emergency SOS settings on many phones. McNamara says there were calls where the person didn’t know their phone had dialed 911 at all.
McNamara believes another part of the abandoned calls comes from children who are playing with phones that don’t have service but can still dial out to 911.
“They don’t realize there’s a law that requires all phone providers have to allow their customers to dial 911,” says McNamara. “If you are going to let your child play with a phone, just take the battery out.”
She adds that parents should keep an eye on children with the phones and educate them about 911.
When phones do dial 911 accidentally, she says to make sure to stay on the line to tell a dispatcher that there is no emergency, to allow causing resources to be spread where needed.
“Just stay on the line and say it was an accident,” says McNamara. “It happens to all of us.”
