Hoax emergency calls on the rise
After an influx of hoax calls, one of the country's biggest emergency response units say they have had enough.
AFTER receiving more than 33 000 hoax phone calls last year, ER24 has made an urgent appeal to the community to refrain from making unnecessary calls to the emergency service provider.
Paramedics were shocked to report that many of the calls seemed so realistic that they only realised they were hoax call when they arrived at the alleged scene. Even more concerning was the fact that a significant amount of hoax calls were made by adults.
The calls received by the contact centre agents ranged from reports of non-existent collisions to people being “in distress” in remote locations.
Shakira Cassim, the ER24 contact centre manager, urged hoax callers to think about the consequences of their actions. “The risk is so high. Someone having a bit of fun can impact on another person’s life. There are instances, especially over peak periods, where our vehicles are all over attending to real emergencies, such as drowning incidents and collisions with multiple patients. Attending to a hoax call means that we have a vehicle unavailable to attend to someone really in need,” she said.
