Saturday, March 15, 2008

My Cell Phone Called 911 By Mistake...How Embarrassing

I have a very old cell phone. I got it in 2000 and I haven't upgraded for many reasons including not wanting to sign up for another 2 year contract and not wanting to buy accessories for a new phone. So, on Friday when I was coming in to work, I had the phone cradled in my arm along with some other things while I was unlocking the door. After I got in I realized that my phone had called someone! I hit the off button and looked at the number...911! Then, they called me back. Oh how embarrassing. I said I was so sorry, I didn't know how my phone called them.

When I got home I did a search on the internet and came up with this website: 911 Public Education I have one of those old phones that will call 911 if the 9 button is held down. I must have squeezed the phone when I opened the door. I had no idea.

That's just another reason why I should get a new phone. In the meantime, I am going to use the keypad lock function so that my phone can't make any more embarrassing calls to the police. It would have been even more embarrassing if they had showed up!

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

I did this right about a year ago now... I even had the keypad locked, but it managed to call 911 in my pocket. Worst part is, it was a few days after I interviewed for a dispatcher position with Lancaster County-Wide Communications, so I got a little excited until I realized it was a call-back, and in a different county, no less.

Daizy said...

That's awful. Even with the key-pad locked? darn. I'm tempted to try it but I don't want the call to go through. I really should upgrade!

Anonymous said...

When I was a kid, our cordless phone called 911 one night while we were having dinner. I was sooo lucky to be with my parents when the call was made because the police didn't believe me (I was a good kid and would never have done that, but they didn't know me).

Apparently, the phone had a freakout when its batteries drained. I guess it was supposed to be able to call 911 even without batteries. It just got a little pre-emptive.

Or it thought there was some kind of crisis because it had no juice.

Anyway, it lost its being alive privileges that night and went out with the garbage the next day.

Daizy said...

Oh that is funny mrs. micah! It knew it was dying and tried to get help. Spooky!

Anonymous said...

Yeah Daizy, it was at that point that I realized that my phone (like most, apparently) still lets you dial 911 with the keypad locked. It's a safety issue, I guess, so you don't need to fumble around unlocking it when you're being shot at/mugged/house is burning down around you. Which also went to explain why sometimes there would mysteriously be a 9 in the center of the screen, all by it's lonesome...

Anonymous said...

I leave my phone locked all the time for purely financial reasons - I would hate to pay for an accidental phonecall!

Daizy said...

rachel, that remeinds me of the time I was visiting my sister. Her husband threw the phone in the bag and it accidentally hit redial and called me while I was sitting in the car with them. I said, your phone is calling me. My sister yells, don't answer!!! It will cost a dollar! I said fine but you only have 2 more rings until it goes to voice mail which led to a frantic search for the phone. Good thing we weren't driving yet. I could see the headlines- Horrible Accident Caused By Cell Phone While Trying To Save A Dollar!