

Chris Fox, CP24.com





You may think that a cold fast food meal or a sick cat is cause for alarm but you should think twice before calling 911 about anything other than a real emergency.

That’s the message from police in Hamilton anyway.

The Hamilton Police Service says that 911 operators fielded 195,000 calls in 2018, nearly one-third of which were of a non-emergency nature.

Police say that about 4,500 of those non-emergency calls were the result of pocket dials, while countless others were for trivial matters that never should have been the subject of a 911 call.

Hamilton police say that a call to check the time topped their list of the 10 most wasteful calls fielded by 911 operators this year followed by a call for a hacked Facebook account and a call about an assault committed by a humping dog.

“Non-emergency calls take up valuable resources and potentially delay responding to those individuals in a genuine emergency. A 911 emergency is when someone needs help right away because of an injury or an immediate danger,” Hamilton police said in a press release.

Here is a look at the most wasteful and pointless 911 calls of 2018 as provided by Hamilton police: