Is your phone making unexpected 911 calls?

WICHITA, Kan. (KSNW) — Some first responders say they are getting sent to check on crashes that never happened, which is tying up resources. They say newer iPhones and Apple Watches are calling 911, even though the owner did not dial the number.

The iPhone 14 and newer iPhones, the Apple Watch Series 8, and newer Apple Watches have crash detection.

Apple says the feature is designed to detect severe car crashes, such as front impact, side impact, rear impact, and rollovers. When the device detects a serious collision, it sounds an alarm and displays an alert.

The message reads, “It looks like you’ve been in a crash. iPhone will trigger Emergency SOS if you don’t respond.”

If the user does not respond within 20 seconds, the phone or watch will automatically notify 911. Dispatchers will learn there was a crash, the person is unresponsive, and the location.

A Mulvane mother credits the crash detection on her son’s phone for helping to save his life in June. The 17-year-old’s truck rolled, leaving him with critical injuries. His phone notified 911.

But the Winfield Fire/EMS Department said the phones and watches also detect strong jolts that are not from crashes. Usually, the phone owners are in the middle of doing something and don’t notice the crash detection message. Therefore, they don’t cancel the message, and 911 sends help.

On Tuesday, 911 was notified of a crash six to seven miles out of town. When Winfield Fire/EMS arrived, there was no crash. Instead, people were searching for a phone in a ditch. Apparently, they had been driving down the country road, and the phone bounced out a window.

“I have seen reports from other areas of the country. In Colorado, there are places reporting that ski slopes, individuals falling on skis is triggering alerts,” Fire Marshal Chad Mayberry, Winfield Fire/EMS Department, said. “One 911 center somewhere had reported an amusement park, individuals riding a rollercoaster that triggered alerts.”

He said some local incidents have involved people riding ATVs or UTVs or dropping their phones. He said the false alarms are happening too frequently.

“Into the spring, it’s been multiple times a week we’re getting calls for vehicle accidents because of that,” Mayberry said. “Typically, they’re occurring in rural areas, and so we’re finding it’s tying up a lot of resources.”

His department has seven to eight people on duty a day. If there is a crash, a rescue truck, EMS and law enforcement respond. And if 911 gets another emergency while they are at the scene, Winfield has to call in crews who are off duty.

“So it has overtime budget impact for us, and then you look at other rural areas that are relying primarily on volunteers, you’ve got volunteers that are leaving their jobs and other activities to respond to what are essentially false alarms,” Mayberry said.

He agrees that the crash detection feature can save lives, so he does not want people to turn off the feature.

“It is a great feature when it works correctly because I have heard instances where it has made a difference and helped save lives,” Mayberry said.

He wants people to pay attention to their phones and place them where they are not subject to significant jarring or being dropped.

“It has become very problematic with the false calls and, to date, we on the 911 have not identified a good solution to how to handle this or proceed,” Mayberry said.

KSN News reached out to Apple about the concerns. We have not heard back.