Syracuse (WSYR-TV) -- All of us rely on 911 in an emergency, but what’s the deal with the automated messages we sometimes hear?
Carol Hartnett called 911 the other day to report a car in the ditch across from her house. She was answered by a recording and a series of tones so loud she had to hang up. Luckily, nobody was hurt in the crash and the car was promptly pulled from the ditch. But Carol wants to know why an operator didn’t answer her call and shouldn’t she have gotten a call back after she hung up the phone?
Onondaga County Emergency Management Commissioner Bill Bleyle says a caller has not made contact with 911 until an operator answers the phone. Even if you hear a recorded message, in theory, the phone is still ringing, so you won’t get a call back if you hang up. As for the recording itself, given that cell phone use is so widespread, it’s not uncommon for 911 to get many calls at once about the same accident. If that happens, and there are not enough operators to answer all the calls, a recording picks up on the third ring, instructing you to stay on the line. The tones Carol heard let a caller who is hearing impaired know he or she is waiting in queue and that they should stay on the line. Bleyle says it’s pretty uncommon to get that recorded message.
911 is required to answer 90 percent of its calls in 10 seconds or less. In the last month, Onondaga County Emergency Management has answered nearly 93 percent of its calls within 10 seconds or less. And nearly all were answered within 15 seconds or less.
