Nearly 10,000 calls to 911 went unanswered last year in St. Joseph County.

“We only have a certain number of 911 operators on the floor at any given time,” explained Michael Clayton, President of AFSCME Local 164.

Clayton said 13 dispatchers typically work any given shift and when more than 13 calls come in at the same time—some of those calls go unanswered. “It's simply that we don't have enough bodies on the floor to answer them.”

The figure is being used as a community wake-up call in a YouTube video and it serves as the inspiration for an online AFSCME petition drive that calls for “adequate staffing” at the communications center.

Despite missing nearly 10,000 calls in 2016 people still got through to a dispatcher nearly 93 percent of the time.

“So the co. 9-1-1 center we have an average of about 7.2 percent of abandoned call rates which means those are phone calls that we don't answer directly,” said Public Safety Communications Center Executive Director Brent Croymans. “What we’re doing is trying to improve that efficiency, trying to get every call answered within so many seconds so there is no delay for citizens.”

“While the center received some 500,000 calls last year, Clayton says “that’s still seven percent of the calls. 10,000 calls is a lot of calls that aren’t getting through where somebody’s life may be in jeopardy or property may be in peril.”

When calls at missed, they aren’t ignored: A dispatcher will call back as soon as they’re free.

There are now a total of 64 dispatchers working at the Public Safety Communications Center, although 11 are still in training.

“We’ve had several studies done by an independent company that came in with a recommendation of 99.4 employees, and a second study came in at 99.2 so you can see that we're gravely behind,” said Brent Croymans.

The union feels that the center could get by with 78 dispatchers and says the new hires could be obtained by diverting the $570,000 the center spent on overtime last year.