NEENAH (NBC 26) — Modern technology has made communication extremely convenient. But sometimes convenience comes with precautions.
According to Neenah Community Policing Coordinator Joe Benoit, the number of accidental dials to 911 have increased significantly since this time last year.
“Our officers have been responding to 911 hang ups or 911 open lines, presumably pocket dials, but we can't be certain. There's just been a drastic uptick in the amount of those calls,” Benoit said.
In June of 2022, Benoit said Neenah Police responded to 139 accidental calls to 911. But for June of 2023, that number increased to at least 350.
When a phone dials 911, the call is sent to a dispatch center. For the city of Neenah, that dispatch center is located in the Winnebago County Sheriff's Office.
Dispatchers for the whole of Winnebago County said that Neenah PD's numbers aren't an outlier.
So far, they said they have received 1,253 misdials for all of Winnebago County in the month of June — and 6,659 misdials in 2023, with six months still left in the year.
Workers at the Winnebago County Sheriff's Office Dispatch Center said that the worst thing you can do is ignore the situation when you realize your mistake.
"Officers are going out and doing a lot of field work on it, looking see if they can find somebody," said Winnebago County Sheriff's Officer Communications Supervisor Brian Smith.
"And then it ends up being nothing, and it's pulling time and resources from potentially other more serious events that are occurring. But you have to treat each one as if it's a serious event. You never know when the call is going to be a real call," Smith said.
Dispatchers also emphasized that it's important not to be discouraged from calling when you are experiencing a real emergency. Sometimes, like in domestic violence situations, a person in danger can't talk on the phone.
Because of cases like those, an unanswered dial could be serious.
So, not returning a call back will only put responders on high alert — and they're going to send officers to check on you if you don't answer their attempts to reach you.
“It's like the boy that cried wolf, you know,” Smith said.
If you find that you've accidentally dialed 911, the best thing to do is to stay on the line and explain to the person on the other end that the call was a mistake.
If you happen to hang up before speaking to the dispatcher, it's very important to answer their call back. It will usually come from an unregistered or restricted number.
“They aren't in trouble," Smith said. "We just need to confirm a few bits of information and make sure that everything's OK. And then they'll be good to go on their way."
