Emergency call centers get more 9-1-oops calls with switch to 10-digit dialing

RALEIGH, Mar 31, 2012 (The News & Observer - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) -- Workers at emergency call centers in the Triangle had more than their usual share of mistaken calls Saturday as mandatory 10-digit dialing in area code 919 led to misplaced fingers on telephone keypads and people wound up calling 911.

Call centers in Orange, Chatham, Wake, Durham and Johnston counties said they had varying degrees of mistaken calls that had to be answered. Only Cary dispatchers said they had not noticed a change.

The increase call volume did not interfere with emergency operations or result in clogged 911 lines because the calls did not all come in a short time like they would during a severe storm or a major incident, dispatchers said. But each mistaken call added one task and sometimes two.

If people stayed on the line and explained the mistake, dispatchers were able to end the call there. If people hang up on 911 operators, however, many are required by their procedures to call back and sometimes to dispatch emergency services, too, until the matter is clarified. They call back in an effort to find out if someone truly needs help but is unable to explain what is wrong.

"We've gotten a few more," Lt. Robert Patton, a shift commander at Orange County Emergency Management Services in Hillsborough said. "We have to call back" if someone hangs up without explaining why the call came in, he said.

In Durham, a dispatcher asked if the call center had been getting more mistaken calls than usual said, "Yes we have!" A counterpart in Johnston County said she had seen a large increase Saturday.

The Wake County emergency dispatching center in Raleigh got "a lot more than usual," a dispatcher there said.

Many people may not have realized their mistake until a dispatcher answered and asked the nature of their emergency. People can dial 911 and continue with the next seven digits, not realizing the error, but phones stop listening after the second "1" and route the call directly to the nearest emergency center.

___ (c)2012 The News & Observer (Raleigh, N.C.) Visit The News & Observer (Raleigh, N.C.) at www.newsobserver.com Distributed by MCT Information Services

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