911 "misdials" prove costly

"Unfortunately, it's something that every police department in the area has to deal with. Maybe they forget they already hit it? I don't know, but we get it a lot,” reports Lake Mary Police Officer, Zach Hudson.

Several times a day, Hudson responds to what's called a 911 misdial. His chief says just in the last year alone, the department received 657 misdials.

“When you dial 9 to get out of a business, and you have to dial 1 for that long distance phone call, you have folks here who naturally hit that next 1. And then we're rolling that way,” says Hudson.

Telecom insiders say "fat finger” syndrome is sometimes to blame.

Somehow, after an employee dials 9 to get an outside telephone line at the office, and then dials 1 for the long distance number, he or she accidentally dials an extra 1. 

911 dispatch also gets misdials from hotels that use a 9-1 prefix.

“If you have a six-story hotel, you've got to figure which room it is. That means the front desk is going to have to verify where that call came from. That takes time,” suggests Hudson.

On average, Officer Hudson spends 90 minutes a day clearing misdials.

When you consider time and fuel, the police department spends tens of thousands of tax dollars a year on the mistakes.

Here's another crazy example that happens: dispatchers say people dialing New Delhi, India call 911 instead.

Simply because 91 is India's country code. The New Delhi city code is 11.

And if callers forget to dial the international prefix 011at the beginning, you guessed it, the call goes to 911 dispatch.

There is a solution to some of the problem.  “The ideal thing would be to use an 8 versus a 9 in order to get out. At the police department, that's what we do,” says Hudson.

But police say companies often complain that it’s too costly or too burdensome to reprogram their phone systems. "That's taxpayer money being spent. That's time,” warns Hudson.