A 9-year-old Canadian girl called 911 after her mother told her to clean her room.
Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) in Ontario rushed to a house on Dec. 8 around 3:45 p.m. after the young girl called the emergency number but investigators soon found that she had become upset and dialed 911 after being ordered to tidy up her room.
“She didn’t like the fact her mother told her to clean her room so she contacted authorities,” Const. Ed Sanchuck told the Canadian Broadcasting Corp.
Officers are using the situation to urge parents to sit their children down and tell them the 911 number is only for emergencies.
Sanchuk noted that two or more officers respond to calls and that such responses take at least 30 minutes if not much longer, putting enormous pressure on the department.
“Whether false alarms are intentional or unintentional, they tie up the phone lines at the communications center, waste taxpayer money, tie up law enforcement officers, and threaten lives,” he said.
Parents can also lock their cellphones.
“We’ve had previous cases where a key was stuck in a safety deposit box at a financial institution and a grown adult contacted 911 because they couldn’t get the key out,” said Sanchuk. “We’re just asking people to use some common sense.”
If anyone does dial 911 by accident, stay on the line and clearly state that it was a mistake.
Because the girl didn’t have criminal intent when making the call, she won’t face criminal charges.
Passerby, Fooled, Calls 911
A Texas man who was passing by a house called 911 because he thought a dummy hanging from the roof was a real person.
The dummy was used to recreate a scene from “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation.” In one scene in the movie, Clark Griswold clings to the gutter of his home after he slipped while putting up Christmas lights.
Underneath the dummy was a ladder that looked like it was tipping over. The elaborate decorations were part of an effort to win the neighborhood’s home decoration contest.
A doorbell camera captured the person yelling, “Oh mister, please hold on!” as he wrestles with the ladder to try to get to the dummy to save it. The man also yelled “HELP!” and called 911.
“He was doing everything he could to get the ladder! And be like ‘Save Clark!’” Chris Heerlein’s sister-in-law Leah Wheless told KVUE. “He didn’t give up. Whatever he had to do, he was going to save old Clark Griswold.”
A police officer responded to the call and spoke to the nanny.
After the ordeal, the family kept the dummy hanging but put up a sign that said, “Clark G is part of our Christmas display please do not call 911.”
The family heard the man’s telephone number when he gave it to the operator during the 911 call. They called the man and thanked him and gave him a gift card as an apology.
The passerby was identified as a retired veteran.
“I was trying to get him down anyway I can. Except when I started talking to him, he never said nothing!” Alfred Norwood Jr. said. “Then I thought, ‘Oh my God I hope he’s not dead, lemme call 9-1-1.’”
