I work in one of the counties where the United States and Mexico are separated by nothing more than some knee-deep flowing water, El Rio Grande. Yet, in this comm center, there seems to be an overflow of something few, if any, people know about. I'm talking about an overflow, literal overflow of 911 calls from deactivated cell phones in Mexico bouncing off of US towers and getting routed to our PSAP. It's quite an annoying, actually causes trouble sometimes when we're working real incidents, yet, we have no control over it. No 911 call can be denied, therefore we receive calls from every activated and deactivated cell phone that will pick up signal. It's a nuisance.
Most of the time, the person on the other end is a kid, yelling profanities at me in Spanish. I happen to be bilingual, which helps in a county where the population is that of around 80% Hispanics. Here's a taste of what I get most of the time but, please, pardon my Frenc.. er, Spanish.
*PSAP ringing, 911 area code. No location, just the tower.*
(Insert desired mental profanities here)
"911, your emergency?"
"Bueno?"
"Si, linea de emergencia, que es tu emergencia?"
"Chinga tu madre wey, pinchi mamon."
"Perdon, tienes emergencia?"
"No, no tengo emergencia pinchi wey jodido. Vales verga."
"Esta es la linea de emergencia de los estados unidos. Solamente debes de llamar esta linea si tienes emergencia en los Estados Unidos."
*Line Disconnects*
*BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP*
(More mental profanities)
This happens anywhere between 5 and 30, sometimes 50+, times a day. Sometimes the line is already abandoned, so there's just the matter of logging the call. But after about 10 times in a row, it starts to grow really old, really fast. Once, one of my coworkers received 58 "Mexico" calls. In a row. Within an hour. She was mentally drained after that. After all, we're still on paper logs so we have to write each one down including time and phone number.
Is there a real point to this blog? Maybe. Maybe it's educate the public about some of the problems and dilemmas we face in the comm center. Maybe it's to let other dispatchers know about this ever growing problem. Or maybe it's just an attempt to gain some sort of validation; validation that I'm doing the right thing by sticking out these issues. Or maybe I'm trying to make a point that the kids with cell phones on the other side of the Rio Grande are just insane. After all, insanity has been defined as performing the same action repeatedly, expecting a different outcome.
