Toronto’s 911 operators respond to 300 emergency calls a day that are placed by people’s butts.

“It sounds like the mall, maybe it’s just street noise,” says Judy Broomfield, 911 coordinator for the Toronto Police.

Emergency call-takers are picking up the phone to hear dance clubs, construction sites or a baby gurgling.

The source of these strange calls? Cell phone users’ pockets and purses.

An “unscientific” study found police were receiving an average of 300 “pocket dials” (also known as “butt dials”) every day. That’s 10 per cent of the total volume of calls to 911, says Broomfield. She launched the study after finding the volume of emergency calls was up 120,000 in 2010 over 2009.

So far, there have been no instances of real emergencies being neglected because call-takers were busy trying to find out if a butt dial is legitimate, but the phenomenon is taking up time and resources. It can take up to a minute or two for call-takers to try to decide if an emergency is occurring, or if someone has just sat down on their phone and auto-dialed 911. Call-takers are responsible for ensuring an emergency is actually taking place before dispatching police or firefighters, which means ambulances aren’t tearing out of the garage sirens blaring to respond to a purse dial.

“We’re listening to noise and we’re going, ‘You’ve reached 911. Do you have an emergency?’ And we’re having no one talk to us because the phone is in their purse,” she says.

Peter Nakamura says he’s pocket dialed 911 seven or eight times.

“My phone has this stupid SOS function,” says Nakamura, 24, who lives downtown.

His phone will automatically dial 911 if he presses down on two buttons in succession. And apparently his pocket often does so — “even when my phone is locked!”

He says the 911 call centre will then call him back to find out if there’s a real emergency.

“And I’m totally embarrassed and say, ‘I’m sorry I did not mean to call you,’ ” he says.

The Canadian Wireless Telecommunications Association says auto-dial options for 911 are unsafe and illegal in some provinces.

“There is no reason why anyone should pre-program 911 into their phone,” says spokesman Marc Choma.

He says parents should teach their children to dial 911, not assign it to a speed dial function on their home or cell phone.

“If it’s speed dial number one at home, it’s not going to be speed dial number one at Grandma’s,” he explains.

Urbandictionary.com defines the butt dial as: “When your cell phone accidentally calls someone you did not mean to while on your person.”

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Technology analyst Carmi Levy says the phenomenon is just unnecessary.

“Imagine all the resources being consumed by this,” he says from his office in London, Ont. “It’s a big issue and like most problems related to technology it’s one of behaviour more than anything else.”

He says it’s quite simple to avoid: Lock your keypad or screen before putting your phone in your pocket, purse or holster.

Broomfield urges Torontonians to stop butt dialing by locking their keypads or screens all the time. Don’t pre-program 911 into your phone, she adds, and if it is already in there when you buy the phone, open up the manual and learn to disable the function.

Finally, if your pocket accidentally calls for help, don’t hang up. Just stay on the line, swallow your pride and explain what happened to the emergency call staff.

Embarrassing pocket dials

It could be worse. Toronto Police get a lot of accidental 911 calls but there are much more embarrassing butt dials on record:

SWAT surrounds school — A closet hip hop fan from Illinois pocket-dialed his wife while driving home. She heard rap music in the background, assumed he’d been kidnapped and called the police. The SWAT team surrounded the school where the man works and was surprised not to find a school shooting taking place.

Long distance charges — Carmi Levy, a technology analyst from London, Ont., warns against slipping an unlocked phone into your pocket or purse. You could be accidentally dialing Auntie Mildred down in California and racking up expensive long distance minutes.

Love connection — Videos are popping up on YouTube of young men engaged in, ahem, romantic activities. They pocket dial their friends, who record the calls and post them for all to enjoy. Which begs the question: Where are people leaving their cell phones during close encounters?

Diss dial — This sad story is posted on datingish.com http://www.datingish.com/DatingishEND — a relationship blog: “I saw his number flash across the screen and stared at it in shock. I picked up after a few rings, but he had already hung up. I called him back, and he didn’t answer. He butt-dialed me. He doesn’t actually want to talk to me or see me. He would have picked up my call if he did, or at least called me back later. Pathetic.”