Accidental 911 Calls by Coaster Riders

[I305Evan]

I find this funny, but it is also a good PSA for everyone to be even more careful with your phone if you do decide to bring it on a roller coaster (securely). While this article is specific to Dollywood, I am sure this applies to all parks.

Roller coasters are causing smart devices to accidentally call 911. Dispatchers say it's taxing their system.

In the popular tourism destination of Sevier County, the 911 dispatch center director estimates 60% of accidental calls come from amusement park rides.

www.wbir.com

 

[Nibbins]

Called 911 from the train at Busch Gardens once when I got my new phone.
Didn't even notice until they called me back.

I disabled the 911 function by pressing the side button repeatedly right after that. Really should not be activated by default.

 

[Jonesta6]

I find this funny, but also is a good PSA for everyone to be even more careful with your phone if you do decide to bring it on a roller coaster (securely). While this article is specific to Dollywood, I am sure this applies to all parks.

Roller coasters are causing smart devices to accidentally call 911. Dispatchers say it's taxing their system.

In the popular tourism destination of Sevier County, the 911 dispatch center director estimates 60% of accidental calls come from amusement park rides.

www.wbir.com

Before I read the article, I was thinking that somehow someone wired up a coaster's communications phone (ya know, the system ops use to chat) to an outside line and it inadvertently called 911 as that was a common set of start digits to whatever ride extensions... And likely such a system would prevent inbound calls to the ride from an outside line.

But then I read it and that's not it at all.

 

[horsesboy]

Had a cheap prepaid phone when I was younger. Turned out that the company also provided them to demostic abuse shelters and had them set so that even when locked they would call 911 if you held any key down for more the a few minutes. yeah got rid of it really quick after doing that a couple of times.

 

[Murphy]

We got off of Apollo's Chariot once, grabbed my phone from the locker, and noticed I had several emergency alerts. Apparently my girlfriend had me as the emergency call contact, and had accidentally done exactly this and called 911 and I was alerted that she was in danger.

 

[ControlsEE]

My riding lawn mower routinely butt dials people on my emergency call list. Would be interesting to see if it is a device issue. My iPhone SE never did that, but my Samsung S10 does. Not trying to start a phone fight, just asking if it could be device related.

 

[sereniv]

happened to me once after getting off of invadr (my phone was in a fanny pack)...i called back and apologized and was reasonably told not to bring my phone onto a roller coaster in the future

 

[JohnKell]

Could this be caused by Apple’s fall detection system?