Precious triple-0 call-taker time is being taken up by ridiculous non-urgent calls, including reports of ducks crossing the road and lost television remotes – putting callers in emergency situations at risk.
Western Australia Police Acting Superintendent Graeme Barry said there were “far and wide” reasons for people phoning triple-0, but spoke out about some of the embarrassing reasons behind some of the calls.
Speaking on ABC Perth, he said one included a panicked call from people on holiday who had forgotten their dinner was still cooking.
“(They) have gone away and left their chicken in the oven and they want police to go around there and turn their oven off,” he said
“At the end of it they said police could have the chicken.”
In another instance, a lady phoned triple-0 saying she couldn’t open her milk carton and wanted police to help her.
“We had a lady that called about that, she was desperate to have her cup of tea and she couldn’t get her carton of milk open,” Superintendent Barry said.
There are about 400,000 triple-0 calls made every year in WA and about one per day is about something “absurd”.
“Unfortunately, these sort of stories on the face of it they do sound very funny and sort of ridiculous but there’s a very important message behind this: that when people do ring our triple-0 line for these sort of calls they are putting people who really need police assistance. they’re actually putting lives at risk,” Superintendent Barry said.
Superintendent Barry said there are a range of reasons why people call triple-0 for non-emergencies instead of calling the non-urgent police line (131 444) including mental health reasons, pocket dials, and attempting to get their call answered sooner.
He said while the non-urgent line can experience delays, once a triple-0 call is identified as “as a non-emergency, the caller is transferred to a non-emergency line” with the addition of clogging up the vital emergency line.
Superintendent Barry said they “take around 12,000 triple-0 calls per 24 hours” and said people should only dial triple-0 when there is an emergency situation.
“That means when someone is seriously injured or is in need of urgent medical help or your life or property is being threatened or you’ve witnessed a serious incident or crime, that’s when you should be calling triple zero, not when your chips have turned up cold from a retailer,” he said.
Superintendent Barry said there is a penalty for calling triple-0 when it’s not an emergency.
“It’s actually an offence to use and abuse the triple-0 service, it carries a three year penalty and up to a $75,000 fine,” he said.
Due to strict procedures every call must be taken and any pocket dials that hang up must be followed up.
“Every time someone rings triple-0, we treat it as an emergency call until we determine otherwise.”
