| Last year 4000 hoax calls were made...the majority of them came from young people. |
Picture the scene. Your father has just had a heart attack and you've called 999. After 15 minutes you hear the sirens but the Ambulance flies past your street. It's on its way to a hoax call.
Unfortunately this is the sad reality for many people not just in Derry, but all across Northern Ireland. Last year alone there were over 4000 hoax calls made to the ambulance and fire brigade services, and judging from the latest figures so far this year it shows no sign of decreasing.
So who is making these hoax calls? Paul Coyle, Station Officer at the Crescent Link Fire Station believes young people are mostly responsible. "In the main the majority of the calls would come from young people and it has been found that the age range within which that happened was in the nine year to fourteen year old group.
Michael O'Connell, Communications Manager with the Altnagelvin Ambulance Service believes people of all ages are involved. "It's just people, young people, middle aged people, it doesn't matter, if people have enough drink in them or other substances in them, age doesn't come into it."
The problem does get worse for the Ambulance service over the summer period, as Michael explains. "If you're(young people) on your summer holidays, there seems to be an upsurge of hoax calls, mostly teenage children."
Paul Coyle also feels there are other reasons why more young people are getting involved in this activity. "One of the things we believe has led to an increase in calls particularly from that age group is the availability now of mobile phones and the number of people that have mobiles."
So what do the young people say about this? Why do young people make hoax calls? Connor Donnelly is 12, and he says most young people do it because they get a kick out of it. "I think some young people do it just because it's funny, and it's a laugh seeing people running around, getting all excited if there's a fire or something, and there is no fire."
14-year old David Hunter agrees. "I have heard of a few people who have made hoax calls. I don't actually know anyone that has, but I've heard of people who have made hoax calls in a phone box or something, and then just ran away. They do it for fun, to try and act big in front of their friends and try and get a 'good' name."
Paul Coyle explains just how big a strain hoax calls can be on the emergency services. "It ties up our resources, in that we have got to respond to every call that's made, so when we get to wherever the call is and we find out that it's a hoax, the potential is there for ourselves to be needed somewhere else and we can't be in two places at one time."
Michael O'Connell says the numbers of hoax calls this year already remain high. "In the year starting January to December 2003, there was 702 hoax calls, so far up until the end of May there's 306, so it's running on a par with last year, there's a slight variation, but it's still bad enough to be concerning."
So what is being done to tackle the problem? Paul explains the extent the fire brigade have had to go to try and solve the issue. "We're working with BT because the hoax calls in the majority of cases will come through BT. The agencies all got together and then in March of 2003 there was a schools programme watch where we went out around the schools with BT, with the ambulance service and sometimes with the police, and we were explaining to the children in P7 just about how silly it is to make hoax calls. That's an ongoing thing as well."
That is not all that is happening. They have also had to use modern technology to clamp down on those responsible. "There is an increasing number of prosecutions being made now and how that comes to be is that when people make hoax calls from their home, they don't realise the BT operator keeps that line open so that when they ring 999 and hang up they think that's it, they're away scot-free, but that isn't the case at all. BT hold that line open when the fire brigade arrive and we go back and ask our control room, 'is there any more information?', and they might say, 'the call came from that address', if we ask the occupier to lift the phone they'll find that the BT operator is still on the other end."
Paul also says they have also began to target mobile phone abusers. "There are also programmes running at the minute where calls are made from mobile phones and they turn out to be hoax calls. There is now the technology where that phone can be switched off automatically through a partnership between the emergency services and the phone service provider. So if some guy makes a call on his mobile phone that turns out to be a hoax that can be the end of his mobile phone."
However Paul still feels that there is much work to be done to let people know about the dangers involved. "There is a need for these people to be educated as to what exactly they're doing and what the results of that action has on the fire brigade and has on them."
So will the problem ever end? Derry native Nicole Lynch, 14, is not sure. "Maybe they will, but there's always going to be at least one person that is going to be a wee bit of an idiot and decide that they want to, but I think it might calm down a bit."
About the team
This story was produced by Seamus McDermott, David Bell and Connor Kelly. It was published by the Foyle News.
