TN 911 Center Flooded by Pocket Dials from Music Festival Attendees

Earlier this month, more than 80,000 people attended the annual Bonnaroo festival in Manchester, TN. And many of them were carrying iPhones that have a new feature from Apple that automatically calls 911 when the device is moved rapidly.

The result was an overwhelming number of pocket dial calls to the Coffee County 911 Communication Center that were triggered when festival goers danced to the live performances, WKRN reports.

Director of Coffee County 911 Communication Center Scott LeDuc had alerts sent to those in the area encouraging people to deactivate the “Crash Detection Mode” feature . He said the alerts were successful.

“It reduced the amount of calls that we were getting,” LeDuc said. “It probably reduced it 40 to 60 percent.”

With the help of Bonnaroo, Coffee County was able to locate each caller to confirm that the 911 call was false.

“If somebody dials 911, we have to answer the phone and we have to make sure that we go through all the protocols to make sure that everybody’s safe before we close out that call,” said LeDuc.

LeDuc said that he is grateful for first responders’ work in responding to the false calls at the festival.