Do not call 911 when you lose your ski at the resort and don’t call emergency dispatchers for a weather report.
The 911 call center in the Snyderville Basin gets inundated with requests that are not necessary, which could keep dispatchers from immediately helping callers with real emergencies.
On March 1, a woman at Deer Valley Resort called 911 stating that “she and her husband have lost a ski on Hawkeye run and need assistance.”
Nobody was injured and the Sheriff’s Office has asked the public to stop making the unnecessary calls.
“What happens if all of our phone lines are busy and you can’t get into 911 for some reason?” Summit County Sheriff’s Office Lt. Melanie Crittenden said.
There are eight phone lines in Summit County set up to receive 911 calls from landlines and cellular phones.
“Every time that they call 911 it ties up one line,” Crittenden said.
People dial 911 for “all sorts of things,” she said.
“When it’s snowing they will call and tell you what kind of vehicle they have, what kind of tires they have and ask if it is OK for them to drive,” Crittenden said. “Early in the morning someone will advise us that somebody is driving past their house too loudly, when it winds up probably being a snow plow.”
Placing an unnecessary call to a 911 operator is a misdemeanor offense, said Detective Ron Bridge, a spokesman for the Summit County Sheriff’s Office.
“It’s called abuse of a 911 system,” Bridge said.