atcomsystems.ca/forum Forums General General Telephone & Systems Information Phone line dials 911

In one of our nursing home room there telephone would dial 911. The 911 center would answer and there was no one there. So after the cops showed up a couple of times they were up set. So we called our provedor they tested the line and we had a short in house and we did. so I asked how can a short in the line dial 911 they said if there system detects a short it will dial 911. has any one else had this problem.

This will get complicated so bear with me..
A short can cause a telephone to dial. It's like flashing a hookswitch. The short must be of a very small duration. If 911 is programmed to a button then the short is in essence dialing the code for that button or speed dial location. It all goes back to the rotary dial day!!

We had the phone unplugged from the jack and it still called 911.

If the wires were swinging short that would cause it. It used to be when you had something like this it would default to the operator, now it's to 911. It's not actually dialing 911, it's dialing numbers that the CO can't identify so defaulting to 911. At least that's my understanding. I can tell you we used to see who could dial numbers by rapidly shorting lines. Like jwooten stated it's acting just like a rotary dial does.

Is there a burgalar alrm in the building? How do you know it is that phone that is doing it? Is this on a phone system or directly on an outside line?

It is a direct line coming in straight to the room. And no alarm system. I found the problem and fixed it. It was in a 50 pair cable that had a splice it.

I have had many shorts in lines...

Never once has it dialed 911.
The only thing that happens is the phone will ring back and it'll be dial tone.

Are there any elevators in building or something that has auto dialer that has been programmed for 911. You said this is a nursing home a resident may have brought a preprogrammed phone from home and have it plugged in somewhere

It sounds like an auto dialer doing the dialing and the short could have activated it.
added:
The short isn't dialing the 3 digits 9-1-1. The short is creating an off hook and a dialer is finishing the job

yep, auto dialer or hotline