Emergency call goes unheard

Ruapehu Bulletin, Volume 13, Issue 619, 16 January 1996, Page 1

Emergency call goes unheard

Dialling the emergency number, 111, from a phone box should draw a response even if the phone is faulty, believes a Waimarino man. Craig Garlick tried to contact the police using the two phone boxes outside the Raetihi Police Station in the early hours of last Friday morning but could not make contact. He said while the emergency operator answered, asking him which service he needed, it seemed the operator could not hear him. But Mr Garlick said there should still have been a response to his call, because Telecom has the technology to trace 1 1 1 calls. Telecom recently started listing 1 1 1 calls on telephone accounts to try to minimise hoax calls. He said he tried about six times using the card phone to no avail. The credit card phone would not work at all. "I don't think the operator heard me," he said, "I got the feeling that the operator thought it was a hOax call." "The call should have been latched on and some sort of response made," said Mr Garlick. "Using Telecom' s equipment is a life support system." Mr Garlick said a police officer and ambulance stopped outside the station a short time later, but not in response to his call. He said he got the help he needed, but that the police officer did not seem "overly concerned at all" that the 1 1 1 system had "failed". Hoax call Telecom spokesman Quentin Bright told the Bulletin yesterday that the 1 1 1 call was not answered because the operator judged that it was a hoax call. He said in such cases the operator had to use their judgement as to whether it was a genuine emergency or not. He said if it had been a real emergency the person would have tried other means to get through, such as going to a nearby house. He said he understood the situation was not an emergency. Mr Bright said it was possible to trace such a call and direct services there in an emergency. "The question I would ask is, why Mr Garlick was dialing 1 1 1 if it was not an emergency," said Mr Bright. He said Mr Garlick was lucky not to be prosecuted for making a hoax 1 1 1 call, and asked why he had gone to the media and not approached Telecom with his concerns. Telecom started a campaign last year to try to reduce the number of hoax calls. Three quarters of the more than two million 1 1 1 calls received last year were hoax calls. Mr Bright said both phones were repaired by the Friday night. He said Telecom aims to repair public phones between four and eight hours of a fault being reported.