Jeff Wiehe, The Journal Gazette, Fort Wayne

You’re going about your day when your cellphone rings.

Caller ID shows it’s your buddy. Or maybe it’s your mother or your wife or husband. You pick up. But all that’s on the other is muffled noises or some faint talking between people who are obviously not speaking to you.

When you call back, the person on the other says he or she must’ve mistakenly called you when buttons on the phone accidentally got pressed while in a pocket or purse.

It’s something typically called “pocket dialing” or “butt dialing,” and for most people, it’s a minor annoyance or even something to chuckle about.

But if you’re an emergency dispatcher, a call like that can waste valuable time and precious resources.

And emergency dispatchers are getting more of these types of calls.

“It’s pretty frequent,” said Erin Auer, a dispatcher for Whitley County. “During a normal shift, you’ll get anywhere from zero to 10 to 15 of them a night.”

In Allen County alone, emergency dispatchers received 1,972 hang- up calls that were later determined to be cellphone pocket dials from January 2010 through this month, according to Timothy Lee, the executive director of the now-combined Fort Wayne and Allen County 911 call center.

That doesn’t include some 911 hang-ups in which the origins were never determined.

“We’re finding it happening more and more with kids taking their phones to school,” Lee said. “We’ve got situations where we have to call and validate with schools about potential 911 hang-ups.”

Other towns, though, apparently have it worse.

Dispatchers in Evanston, Ill., told a Chicago TV station that 20 percent of the wireless calls coming in – about 500 a month – are accidental dials. Toronto police told the Toronto Star they receive about 300 pocket dials daily.

When these calls come in, dispatchers must stay on the line to ensure that no one is in trouble, according to both Lee and Auer. Sometimes, a dispatcher will send a squad car in the direction of the phone call if a location can be determined.

Nine times out of 10, there’s no emergency, Lee said. Many times the caller will hang up or the call will be dropped. That prompts dispatchers to call back to determine whether there is a problem.

Both Lee and Auer said people should stay on the line if they notice they’ve accidentally called 911, or at least call the dispatch center’s non-emergency line to tell someone that there is no emergency and that the call was a mistake.

“Usually, it’s more of an embarrassment for them,” Lee said of people’s reaction when they notice they’ve called 911. “They’ve consumed a service that is primarily for emergency service.”

How these calls happen is relatively simple.

Even with screens that lock on newer smartphones, the potential of pocket dialing 911 still exists because some of those phones allow emergency numbers to be dialed from a locked screen.

According to the Federal Communications Commission, many older wireless phones have a feature where if one number – such as the “9” – is held down for a few seconds, 911 will be called. Also, many people may have 911 programmed into their contacts list, which can accidentally be accessed and called while the phone is in a pocket, purse or bag.

And dispatchers are also receiving calls from young children, mainly toddlers who were given an old, unused cellphone discarded by their parents. The problem is that parents leave the batteries in these phones and those phones can still place emergency calls, even if they are deactivated from a wireless plan.

“We’ll take those calls and hear the child in the background,” Lee said. “The biggest thing is, if the phone is no longer a serviceable tool, remove that battery.”

Officials said that people should add a cover to their phone or ensure that a locked screen that doesn’t allow calls to 911 is indeed locked to avoid the problem.

Copyright © 2011 LexisNexis, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All Rights Reserved.