Technology beneficial but frustrates fire chiefs

Fire departments are seeing mixed results with a new cellphone feature that has been both saving lives and wasting resources.

Fire Chiefs are urging people to answer their phones, even if they don’t recognize the number, as it could save a trip for fire, police and paramedics.

In late 2022, Apple introduced software able to call 911 if the device identies that you were in a car accident. While it can work for those situations, it has also been problematic, with it going off on roller-coasters, while skiing or just falling out of your pocket. Samsung also released similar software in early 2024.

After the call is made, a 911 operator calls the number back to see if it’s actually an emergency. If there’s no answer a full dispatch is made while assuming the worst.

In May 2023, Ontario Provincial Police told people to turn off the feature on cellphones, which you can do in the settings. But local first responders are telling people to just answer their phones.

Allen Rau, Fire Chief for the Tache Fire Department said they’ve responded to around six calls from the software since the new year, with only one of them being urgent.

His crew has to assume it’s an emergency, and while most firefighters don’t work at the station, they have to leave work or wake up for every alarm.

“We could have between a dozen to 25 people that are responding and three to half a dozen trucks.”

He said most people don’t even realize they’ve called 911, and don’t answer the call from dispatchers in Brandon because it shows “No Caller ID” when it comes in.

“It was all people dropping their phones, either dropping it on the road because they left it on the roof of their car or they were doing some work and it fell out of their pocket,” Rau said. “Others didn’t even know it that went off, they picked up their phone and kept on working.”

“Unfortunately, it is a thing of the times, where we have all these smart gadgets that do a lot of things for us when we don’t know it’s doing it in the background.”

Reynolds Fire Chief Don McDougall said his area has seen similar results, with half a dozen calls, and only one of them being a true accident. The crew responded to a quad accident, the rest were more phones falling down.

But he says this new feature is good, and that he doesn’t want people to turn the feature off.

“We (fire chiefs) are all in agreement that it’s a good feature, but probably needs a little bit of tweaking,” said McDougall.

One of those solutions could be a caller identification for when 911 operators call back, instead of the current version that looks the same as scam calls.

While false dispatching is a problem in Tache and Reynolds, Emerson-Franklin has seen the exact opposite, with four calls made, and four emergencies responded to.

Barry Gushuliak, co-Fire Chief for Emerson-Franklin said he’s glad to see the technology working in his area and being able to respond quickly because of it.

“The calls we’ve been getting with (the automated system) have been of people that have been in crashes, which is a good thing,” Gushuliak said.

One of the calls his crew responded to was a 22-year-old who hit a guardrail on a bridge just outside of Emerson. The crew responded immediately and while they couldn’t save the man’s life, they made sure the bridge on Provincial Road 200 he hit didn’t collapse.

The feature was released with the iPhone 14 and the Apple Watch Series 8. Once crashes are detected, a 20-second delay happens where you can cancel the call. You can turn off the new feature through settings.