Law enforcement agencies have seen an influx of abandoned 911 calls.
Even if the call is accidental, Chickasaw County Sheriff Ryan Shawver encourages you to not hang up on the dispatcher.
If you do make an accidental 911 call, you are not in trouble with the law.
Shawver notes that one of the biggest increases in accidental 911 calls comes from cell phones passed onto children. While parents may have the device deactivated so kids can’t make regular phone calls, it could still be active for emergency notifications to 911.
When you do call 911 in an emergency, Shawver says dispatch will ask for your location right away, just in case the call gets disconnected.
Shawver says even if you call 911 on purpose, but then decide its not an emergency, a sheriff’s deputy may still come to check that everything is ok.
