Preston: Always call 911 when dealing with medical issues
A heart attack, a burglar in your home, a flaming turkey in the oven.
The commonality between those incidents is who you call for help. It’s not Ghostbusters, but 911.
“If there’s a crime in progress or a crime’s been committed, absolutely call (911),” Monongalia County Sheriff Perry Palmer said.
However, about 70% of calls to MECCA, Monongalia County’s 911 service, could be handled by calling a non-emergency number, assistant 911 director Brad Wilson said.
According 911.gov, calls to 911 without a true emergency can overload a 911 system. That means an operator could be tied up and not able to help someone else in need, Palmer said. That’s exactly what happens, according to Wilson.
The government website, 911.gov, said there is a growing need for public education about how to use 911 appropriately. Wilson agreed education on 911 use is important.
Some larger cities have also reduced the number of non-emergency 911 calls by implementing a three-digit number, such as 311, Wilson said. However, Monongalia County does not have such a number.
Morgantown Police Chief Ed Preston said people should always err on the side of caution when it comes to calling 911 over not calling. Calling an emergency agency directly rather than 911 creates a delay in response time because the call needs to be transferred to the 911 center.
“If it’s an emergency in progress, a crime has just occurred, like you saw someone leaving the area, we would still consider that a crime in progress,” Preston said.
Both the sheriff’s department and MPD have non-emergency numbers, 304-291-7260 and 304-284-7522, respectively.
Preston said the number can be used for things such as reporting a lost cell phone. Palmer said abandoned cars, setting up a vacation watch for your house, welfare checks and questions for an officer are also uses for the non-emergency number.
“Anything dealing with a medical issue, always call 911 because it could go from bad to terrible in seconds,” Preston said.
According to the Arizona State University Center for Problem-Oriented Policing, there are two types of 911 misuse and abuse — intentional and unintentional.
Unintentional calls include phantom calls, misdials and hang-ups. Intentional calls include non-emergency calls, prank calls, exaggerated calls and lonely complaint calls.
Non-emergency reasons people call 911 include people asking the time of a football game, reporting a car that was broken into the night before or even using 911 to be transferred to a non-police number to avoid paying for a call. One police department found its own off-duty officers were abusing the system in this way, according to the Arizona center.
Phantom calls can be attributed to pocket dials or programming on some cell phones that automatically complete and dial 911 if a user presses 9 or 1.
If you do phantom dial 911, or if your child calls 911, don’t hang up. Simply explain what happened, said the National Emergency Number Association, a professional organization focused on 911 policy, technology, operations and education issues.
Lonely complaint calls are typically made by elderly or mentally ill people, according to the center. Some truly believe an emergency is happening while others just want company.
