York Region police are urging parents not to let their children play with their cell phones after receiving more than 15,000 unintentional calls to 911 this year.

Police said they have received 15,172 unintentional phone calls to the emergency service from wireless devices, accounting for 18 per cent of all their 911 calls, taking away precious time from someone who may really need it.

“The biggest offenders are young children,” said York Region police Const. Andy Pattenden.

“Investigators regularly spend a large amount of time on the phone with children who are playing with their parents’ phone and accidently press on the emergency dial button on the phone’s lock screen.”

The sounds of children playing on the cellular devices can be heard in audio recordings released by York police as a part of an initiative to reduce the time spent on these calls.

But the number of inadvertent calls they’ve received in 2017 is still on pace to be lower than previous years.

In 2012, 83,573 unintentional phone calls were made and two years later, that number had gone down to 66,096, Pattenden said.

But parents still need to be aware of what their children are playing with, Pattenden said.

“We are urging the public not only to ‘lock it before you pocket it,’ but not to let children play with mobile phones,” police said in their news release.

“Someone who places an unintentional 911 call should stay on the line as every call is taken seriously. Users are urged to let the emergency operator know it was a pocket dial or unintentional call. This will eliminate the need for the emergency operator to call back to determine if there is a legitimate emergency.”