Curtis Rush Police Reporter
Acting Deputy Police Chief Jeff McGuire was guilty once of a ?pocket dialed? 911 call, which left him apologetic and embarrassed.
He admitted to that at a news conference Monday as police across the GTA launched a safety campaign warning cellphone users to ?lock it before you pocket.?
A couple of years ago, McGuire said, he dropped his phone into his golf bag while on the course during his vacation.
?Unbeknownst to me, a 911 call was placed,? he said. ?About an hour later, I discovered that the OPP communications centre had been trying to get in touch with me. I called back and learned what the error was and apologized.?
The acting deputy chief said he was ?incredibly embarrassed? for wasting the police resources.
?My negligence resulted in a delay for other people with real emergencies,? McGuire said. ?I learned my lesson. My phone has been locked ever since.?
More than 2 million calls, to both 911 and the non-emergency number 416-808-2222, were placed to the communications call centre in Toronto in 2011 ? a 7 percent increase over the year before. Of the more than one million 911 calls, there were some 227,000 misdials ? about 18 percent of the total.
Police say pocket dialed 911 calls are an international problem.
Here are some reasons why, as reported by 911 call-takers:
??? Last year, the OPP got a garbled call at the Orillia communication centre that appeared to be coming from 5 kilometres out on Georgian Bay. Police thought perhaps a boater was in trouble. So an AC-130 Hercules aircraft was dispatched from Trenton. A couple of hours later, it was confirmed the caller was skiing in Collingwood.
???A lot of calls come from women who store their phones in a purse, where a wallet or lipstick can easily bump against the phone and put through a call.
???Parents often let their kids play games on their cellphones, say on a long road trip. Misdials from children playing with the phone can be made while the parents are totally unaware.
???It?s common to get 911 calls from the entertainment district on weekend nights, inadvertently placed from a purse, pocket, or even a hand. The call-takers can hear music, but it?s so loud they can?t hear the people and the people can?t hear the call-takers.
???After Christmas, children who got cellphone gifts often take those phones to school and mistakenly call 911. Call-takers say they can hear a teacher talking in the background and hear children?s voices but can?t get through to the children.
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