Do cordless land line phones "call" 911 when battery goes bad?

Question

I have a cordless land line phone that's seven years old. I got a call from the 911 dispatcher wanting to know if all was okay at my house. I was bewildered since I was just sitting at my computer and I don't have the usual suspects living in my house...ie, small kids. My land line is mostly a fax line and turned off when not in use and the other phone hangs on the wall, so the cats wouldn't be walking on it.

Years ago I heard about cordless phones "calling" 911 when their batteries were going bad. Wonder if this is still the case.

I've put in a repair call to the phone company because the land line has lots of static on it too.

Any phone company repair experts out there who can shed some light on this "phone-y" problem?

Thanks!

Answer 1

I worked repair for a telco for 25 years and never had a trouble report like that.

Answer 2

No I've had phones die on me in call and just sitting around and not call 911.  It would be areally bad feature to have because not everyone puts them back on the charger when they finish a call.

However it is really easy for them to call 911.  If it has coded dial or speed dial built in a lot of phone need you to only press one button like 8 or 9 and hold it down for a couple of seconds and they will call 911.  It could have been by accident like a book falling on one or being stepped on, I had my cat make a call once by knocking the phone down it wasn't to 911 but another program in the speed dial.

Answer 3

It is entirely possible that the 911 operator got the wrong information, or dialed the wrong number.

It is very, very rare, but it does happen.