Accidental 999 calls - how you can help
Northumbria Police have today (Monday) revealed their control room received more than 22,000 abandoned 999 calls in 2020.
Every single dropped call needs to be investigated by police to establish whether a person was at risk and an emergency response was needed.
But out of those 22,000 abandoned calls, officers have revealed 8,500 were thought to have been made accidentally and no police response was needed.
This means call handlers and police officers on the ground are spending thousands of hours a year chasing up pocket dials to 999.
And now the Force has called on the public to make sure their phones are locked – and also stay on the line if a child dials the number accidentally.