Does 911 ever not answer?
Picture this scenario.
You have an emergency.
A health crisis.
Or your kitchen is on fire.
Or someone is trying to break into your home.
You grab the phone, shaking, and frantically call 911.
Then you’re put on hold. And you wait. And you wait. Not just a few seconds. It seems like a lifetime goes by before you finally talk to a live person.
This scenario happens way more often than you think.
Petra Gordon came home to find her husband on the floor of his office. She tells us “I called 911. I was put on hold. Which I never even thought you could be put on hold for 911. I didn’t get a real person on the phone for a good 60 seconds. So, then I finally got a live person who told me to do CPR and told me how to do the compressions on my husband.”
According to the National Emergency Number Association, a trade association for the 911 industry, 90 percent of calls are answered within 10 seconds and 95 percent within 20 seconds.
But, depending on the location, these stats can be skewed.
The reality of the 911 system is definitely something that needs an explanation.
There are a few reasons why your call may not be answered right away:
1. Dispatchers cost money.
Where does that money come from? They could be funded publicly or privately. But like any other business that is operating under a budget, it is a balancing act and the number of employees must be taken into consideration.
2. If the call was made from a cellphone, which most calls these days are, that could delay the processing and the call may need to be re-routed.
Honestly, how many people actually have a landline anymore?
So, here’s what happens. When you call 911 from a landline, the call is more easily tracked to your address. When you call from a cellphone, the dispatcher gets very little location information. The center gets the location of the cellphone tower your phone hits. In order to get your true location, call takers are forced to gather more information. That takes up call processing time. The longer that takes, the less available they are to take other calls coming in.
3. Every dispatch center is different.
Some centers in larger cities have greater needs than small town centers, where the dispatcher my be multitasking and handling multiple responsibilities at the same time. The dispatcher may be talking to the caller and talking on the radio channel as well, trying to reach firefighters and EMT to get them to the location of the emergency.
What can you do?
First and foremost, don’t hang up! If you hang up, the dispatcher has to call you back. It’s called an “abandoned call”. They have to follow up and try to reach you, which prolongs the processing time, keeping you on the phone longer and blocking other calls coming in.
Also, and I hate to say this, but you can’t rely completely on 911 to rescue you.
Be sure to have your local police department’s direct phone number on hand in case 911 is jammed with other calls.
It’s scary to think that our most important lifeline isn’t always there when we need it. It’s important to be aware that this is a possibility.
And maybe become CPR certified just in case. It certainly wouldn’t hurt.
