BROWN COUNTY, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) — So far this year, Brown County emergency operators have received about 4,000 hang-up calls. People inadvertently or unknowingly calling 911and then hanging up because they don’t have an emergency.
Technology can be helpful in times of need, but also a nuisance when it accidentally dials 911 and you don’t need help.
“I would say last year we had almost 11,000 911 hang-ups,” said Chancy Huntzinger, Brown County Dir. of Public Safety Communications.
In each of those cases, 911 dispatchers needed to make contact with the caller to make sure everything was okay.
“I do think sometimes people call and they realize and they think they can hang up,” Huntzinger said. “It hits our system nearly instantly and we see that and if it is a hang-up, we’re going to attempt to call that caller back.”
And if they don’t get an answer or can’t get the caller on the phone, Brown County will send a follow up text to the number — letting the inadvertent caller know they received a 911 call from their number.
The text recommends, if it’s an emergency, to call 911. If the call was a mistake, the text asks the caller to either call the non-emergency number or text back.
That conversation helps the dispatcher determine whether an officer, deputy or other public service entity needs to respond.
“If your phone has called 911, if you’ve called 911 you might not have realized it and then you were to get that text,” Huntzinger said. “It does have our non-emergency line so if somebody questions it they can call our non-emergency line and speak with a dispatcher.”
The text feature isn’t necessarily a new tool in Brown County; it’s been around for a couple of years. The county is just reminding people about the feature. Reassuring them, at a time when online and text scams are becoming more prevalent, this text message is legitimate.
“Generally we can get somebody back on the phone, but that extra step is just something we’ve decided to implement just to have another step and to provide our non-emergency line if they need that and also reassure them and say call 911 if you have an emergency,” added Huntzinger.
Conversations between a dispatcher and an accidental caller will only take a minute or two to complete.
