If you accidentally dial 999...Dont hang up!!

[Elderflower14]

Just saw this on FB.
Very interesting...

North Yorkshire Police

Accidentally dialled 999? 📞

Your natural reaction might be to hang up as soon as possible so as not to waste police time.

But did you know that if you hang up without speaking to the operator your call will be passed to us as a 'silent call'?

And many people don’t realise that we then need to spend valuable time trying to call you back to establish whether there is an emergency situation and determine if an emergency response is needed.

So, if you accidentally dial 999 then the best thing you can do is to stay on the line and let the operator know that it was an accident and that no assistance is required.

Please don’t just hang up.

Over the past seven days we have had nearly 500 abandoned calls. On average we estimate that we get approximately 20,000 calls a year that are an accidental or ‘pocket-dial’ calls.

That’s thousands of hours a year where we could be answering genuine 999 calls and 101 calls much quicker.

But there are ways you can help up:

• As mentioned above, always stay on the line and explain what has happened to the emergency service call handler if you accidentally call 999. Do not simply hang up.

• Keep your phone safe and out of reach from children and pets.

• And lock your phone before you put it in your pocket or bag.

We understand that accidents happen, but if you accidentally call us, by staying on the line you can help us save time tracing the call and free up our colleagues’ time to take genuine 999 calls from those really in need of help.

As always, if a crime is in progress or if there is an immediate risk to person or property, always dial 999.

If a crime is not in progress, then please consider reporting the incident online to us via our website in the first instance. Alternatively, you can call 101.

I knew this but only because I once had a visit 😳

Ds1 got the phone as a toddler...I saw the phone in his hand and heard 'what's your emergency?', panicked and hung up. Thought no more about it.

About two hours later I had a knock at the door and there were two policemen there. They'd been unable to call the number back as it was engaged (my mum had called just after and we'd yapped for half an hour) so they had to trace the number and do a welfare check 😳😳

I did. Back in the day my work phone required us to dial 9 for an outside line. Somehow I must have dialled 9 three times. It was answered by a call handler and I explained and apologised. So it definitely happens.

I had this once when dd1 was little. Didnt know anything about it till, the police knocked on the door.

Just bumping as sounds like an important message. I didn’t know this

Thank you - I've never done it but my instinct would be to hang up quickly to leave the line free for someone who needed it, I had no idea they traced hang ups.

I don’t know…I called 999 and apparently asked for the fucking coastguard in my sleep!

I was woken by DP asking what on earth I was doing and reassuring the call handler that nobody was stranded at sea and that we were in fact in bed, about 20 miles inland at the time.

Do you speak for all people. I know of a few occasions where 999 has been dialled accidentally and I cant be the only one.

That was meant in reply to the PP who suggested that nobody calls by accident!

Oh god, I still feel guilty about pocket dialing 999 by mistake when I was at a gig. I only found out about it after the gig when I had a load of missed calls and voicemails checking I was alright after they'd been blasted for several minutes with Japanese avant-garde noise rock.

People accidentally call it every day.

Smart phones will dial 999 in your pocket or bag, if certain other buttons are pressed, or a phone screen is cracked among other things. It's very common

If you press the emergency on the Lock Screen you can also dial 999 by accident. Also the same if you accidentally call 112.

DS 18 accidentally called by not having his phone locked, he didn’t realise he as he’d fallen asleep and rolled onto his phone in the middle of the night. I got a call the next morning about 9am asking if everything was ok, they’d got my number as we all use same phone provider, pay one bill altogether. I feel really guilty now about wasting their time.

Keep your phone safe and out of reach from children and pets

Pets?

Have there been many calls from my cats?

My son did this when he was small.

I caught him with the phone in his hand so he just rammed it down and denied everything. (He was v young.)

Police turned up on two wheels and separated us. Then they left. Small son had been showing off his belching prowess to bring up his tea.

When they left I treated him to the look of death.

My brother dialled 999 and then whispered in a panic "police" when asked which service he wanted, then panicked more and hung up.

He was 7. It was 1988. A policeman turned up at my gran's door and explained why. Grannie nearly died of "the shame", our parents were furious with us both (which was extremely unfair to me as I WAS IN THE SHOWER WHEN HE DID IT!

But yes, I've known about this since 1988!

My friends DS called 999 after learning in school that it brings out the emergency services. He was only 6 but he zoned out for some of the lesson, went home and called 999 when my friend was cooking dinner and he was watching TV alone.
He said that they needed police and fire engine, the police arrived before the fire fighters, and when friends DS ran to the door to proudly show his mum he'd gotten the police to visit and soon the fire engines would be there also.
That wee boy is 20 now and luckily hasn't done it since.
I still can't imagine her shock, the police blue lighting their way over 🙈

I was already going to post my story before reading @TheShellBeach 's reply, but yes, that does happen!

Back in the 90s DH and I adopted a stray cat who was already heavily pregnant. She had 5 kittens and we were living in a tiny 1 bed flat at the time, so it was complete chaos once they were old enough to be into everything and we were waiting for them to reach the 8 weeks mark before rehoming them.

One evening we were surprised by a knock on the door from a policeman who said he had to come inside because there was an active 999 call from the premises. He came into the lounge and we saw that the phone had been knocked off the hook. One of the kittens must have done that, and then stepped (repeatedly) on the 9 button 😀

Ds1 sat on the phone and managed to dial 999 when he was a year old.
First thing we knew there were two police at the door within 10 minutes.

Yes!!! That was such a thing back in the days of yor

My DS also called 999 when he was very little. It was only when I heard the tinny voice of the call handler that I realised what he was doing. I took the phone from him and explained, call handler was relieved and pleasant about it.

DSis had similar when her equally tiny DD did the same thing, only she reported that the call handler was really cross and brusque with the explanation.

I did it at work once, must have pressed on the emergency button on the lock screen i think, I immediately hung up and they did call me back a few minutes later to quiz me as to whether I was safe or not, so I did know about this, but the urge to hang up immediately is strong, same as when you make any pocket call, you hope it’ll cut off before it connects.

This happened to me too!! Except I didn't hang up, I apologised profusely (after hearing a voice from my pocket and realising what had happened). My partner must have been overheard saying 'why have you called the police?!' because they called back a few minutes later to check if I could freely talk and ask my whereabouts...luckily they were content that I was safe so I didn't waste any more of their time!

Yeah it happened to me twice, gripping my iPhone too tightly results in an automatic 999 call, apparently!

I did not understand why my phone was doing that, I did stay on the line to apologise and now I carry my phone very gingerly

Don't leave kids unattended with your phone you should be aware of everything they are doing on your phone when they are small. No excuses. There should be fines.