911, dallas county.....pls HOLD!

[aaangel]

http://www.myfoxdfw.com/story/19037372/ ... eds-rescue" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

like we need more reasons...

[mommagamber]

I have called 911 before and got "911 can you please hold" then put on hold. NO if I am calling 911 I cannot hold!!

[k6gixx]

I have called 911 before and got "911 can you please hold" then put on hold. NO if I am calling 911 I cannot hold!!

So if you call 911 then you should be able to bump another 911 caller off the line? What do you think that 911 dispatchers grow on trees. There are only twenty something dispatchers working and probably not all at the same time...so just like everything else in life sometimes we gotta wait

[E.Marquez]

I have called 911 before and got "911 can you please hold" then put on hold. NO if I am calling 911 I cannot hold!!

So if you call 911 then you should be able to bump another 911 caller off the line? What do you think that 911 dispatchers grow on trees. There are only twenty something dispatchers working and probably not all at the same time...so just like everything else in life sometimes we gotta wait

A very flip answer to a very REAL issue

What SHOULD happen, is the operator takes a moment to understand the incoming call, and prioritize it.... Perhaps it's a cat stuck in a tree call and can wait, perhaps it's I just cut off my hand with a skill saw and can not, or a rape in progress, or a non injury fender bender, or.........

A supervisor with the OVERALL responsibility to run the section, not directly answer and respond to each call, can take overflow calls and prioritize the worst ones among available operators.

Now in all fairness, maybe that happened in this case as well, and the media just did not show that..

[jimlongley]

I worked for the phone company when 911 was first being implemented and the issues with too many calls started day one.

911 was chosen because it was fairly easy to remember and yet still hard, on rotary dial systems, to "dial" accidentally, either by someone dialing or by trouble on the phone line. With touch tone, it is still possible to get trouble "dial" 911 calls, because except in a few cases, all touch tone lines still will respond to pulse signaling. 119 was taken, it was a "reverting code" implemented in many central offices.

The week 911 was implemented the first, and still the worst, problem showed up: people calling for all manner of reasons OTHER than emergencies. From lonely shut ins, to kids reading the sticker on the phone and dialing the number, to people reporting that their neighbor has not mowed their lawn this week, 911 call centers still, decades later, take too many calls that do not relate to any sort of emergency.

And that makes it hard on the SYSTEM not just on the operators. The designers build incoming trunks to the call center based on traffic pattern history, and when incoming traffic hits the wall, someone gets a busy signal, so let's say there are 20 incoming trunks and a big wreck occurs and thirty people call it in: busy signal; lots of complaints from the public, so the engineers add more trunks; and a big fire occurs and not only do all the neighbors call it in, but everyone with a cell phone does, and boom! busy signal, or as in this case, with less than the number of incoming trunks worth of operators, someone gets put on hold.

And then there are the idiots who call 911 to see what's going on.

Even if there is a supervisor taking "overflow" and prioritizing, someone is going to wind up on hold, and with just about everyone carrying some manner of "cell phone" these days, it's more likely than ever. There is just no way for the hardware (telephone systems, from central office out), firmware (operators), or software to handle the volumes that can occur these days, and no easy fixes on the horizon. Makes me glad I retired.

If you see a big fire and decide to call it in, look around and see how many others are doing the same. If there's a big wreck and you are the first one there, call it in, but if there are two other people calling it in, think twice, do you really have something unique to contribute to the report? And yes, maybe those other people are just "OMG Ethel, the blood is everywhere and it is sooooo gross and I can't even look and you should have seen it . . ." but the likelihood is that one is calling 911.

[/rant]

Been there, done that.

[knotquiteawake]

When I lived in the Los Angeles area we had issues with 911 as well. I simply put the closest sheriff's substation on speed dial. If that station was closed it would roll over to the next closest substation. The desk officer almost always picked right up, took whatever call, and was able to more quickly dispatch the officer. Basically for anything other than a medical emergency or active shooter type call I would rather call the substation.

Out here i've used 911 a couple times for drunk drivers. I was put on hold, then transferred to three different jurisdictions as each one said "oh we don't handle that, let me transfer you to...." and so on.

[Dave2]

Out here i've used 911 a couple times for drunk drivers. I was put on hold, then transferred to three different jurisdictions as each one said "oh we don't handle that, let me transfer you to...." and so on.

I think I got that once for someone driving the south in the north-bound lanes of 121.

[ghostrider]

I have called 911 before and got "911 can you please hold" then put on hold.

wow.

scary.
dial 1911 first.....

[k6gixx]

I have called 911 before and got "911 can you please hold" then put on hold. NO if I am calling 911 I cannot hold!!

So if you call 911 then you should be able to bump another 911 caller off the line? What do you think that 911 dispatchers grow on trees. There are only twenty something dispatchers working and probably not all at the same time...so just like everything else in life sometimes we gotta wait

A very flip answer to a very REAL issue

I don't understand how this is a "flip" answer to question. It is a very real situation that is being handled as well as technology and the coinciding human interface can manage. How do you propose we make the situation better, by answering 911 and saying you have 5 seconds to explain your "emergency" ready go???

[ScooterSissy]

I have called 911 before and got "911 can you please hold" then put on hold. NO if I am calling 911 I cannot hold!!

So if you call 911 then you should be able to bump another 911 caller off the line? What do you think that 911 dispatchers grow on trees. There are only twenty something dispatchers working and probably not all at the same time...so just like everything else in life sometimes we gotta wait

A very flip answer to a very REAL issue

I don't understand how this is a "flip" answer to question. It is a very real situation that is being handled as well as technology and the coinciding human interface can manage. How do you propose we make the situation better, by answering 911 and saying you have 5 seconds to explain your "emergency" ready go???

Did you read the article? 9 people on duty when there are supposed to be 18 is not a technology problem, it's a management problem. Operators having to work double shifts isn't a budgetary problem, it's a management problem.

Management problems can, and should, be fixed.

[k6gixx]

I'm not sure where you are from but Dallas is in the middle of a huge budget deficit in which the city council is in the process of deciding whether or not to fill over 120 slots opening up in the police department due to retirement and competing agencies. I listen to DPD's dispatch every night and speak to officers almost nightly. The entire city is understaffed and underpaid. I'm not sure how much management can do about not being able to pay their people. If there is no money there is no jobs. No jobs means those that do have to work more or it goes unmanned. You can't schedule people to work that don't exist. Yes it is terrible and yes I've been on the other end of the spectrum having to wait on hold to report an armed encounter with an individual I'm dealing with. But the fact still remains that without the funding no amount of personnel management is going to fix the problem. It is purely a money management situations

[gemini]

Where do the 911 fees associated with land lines in Dallas Co. go? Totally to AT&T ? Or do these fees help
fund the program? Or ???? On 1 commercial line, I pay a fee of $1.58, each and every month. That could end up
being a lot of $$$ if multiplied by all the business owners in Dallas Co. PLUS all the residential land lines.....

[MeMelYup]

Where do the 911 fees associated with land lines in Dallas Co. go? Totally to AT&T ? Or do these fees help
fund the program? Or ???? On 1 commercial line, I pay a fee of $1.58, each and every month. That could end up
being a lot of $$$ if multiplied by all the business owners in Dallas Co. PLUS all the residential land lines.....

Now that is a good question, "where do the 911 fees go."