Phones, watches can place phantom 911 calls

Feb. 15—The call came in just before noon on Friday, Feb. 3 that a skier might be in trouble at Anthony Lakes Mountain Resort.

Members of the ski patrol, using precise GPS coordinates calculated by either a cellphone or an Apple watch, and forwarded to patrollers by police, skied to the spot on Variety Ridge near the top of the mountain.

They found nothing.

No skiers or snowboarders.

No evidence that anyone had had an accident.

What exactly happened is not clear.

But Peter Johnson, Anthony Lakes general manager, is pretty sure it will happen again.

The Feb. 3 incident at the ski area in the Elkhorn Mountains is of a type that's becoming more common on mountains across the West.

A feature on the latest iPhones, and on some Apple watches, can, when enabled, make an automatic 911 call if the accelerometer in the device detects a sudden rapid drop in speed, as would happen in a crash.

A similar feature is available on some Android phones, including several models of Google Pixel.

The feature's most obvious application is a car accident.

But the devices, which of course go with the owner pretty much everywhere, are sensitive enough that they can also alert to sudden deceleration when the person isn't in a car.

Skiing down a steep slope, for instance.

Or riding a bicycle.

"We're going to be chasing a lot of calls that probably didn't happen," Johnson said.

The Feb. 3 incident was the first of its type at Anthony Lakes, he said.

But since December 2022, the Deschutes County 911 Service District has taken at least 30 automatic calls from skiers or snowboarders on Mount Bachelor.

In two cases someone was actually hurt, said Chris Perry, operations manager for the 911 Service District.

But in the vast majority of calls there was no emergency.

In many, the skier or snowboarder likely didn't know the 911 call had been made.

The Colorado Sun reported in December 2022 that one county in that state fielded 71 calls from skiers' or snowboarders' iPhones or Apple watches in one weekend, and that none involved an emergency.

According to Apple, if the device detects a potential fall or crash it will sound an alarm and display an alert. That gives the owner a chance to override the warning and prevent the device from calling 911.

If the device detects the person is moving, it waits for a response before calling. But if the person is stationary for about a minute, it will place the emergency call automatically.

The issue with skiers and snowboarders, Johnson pointed out, is that they tend to be clad in multiple layers of clothing that could easily muffle the alarm.

Hypothetically, if a skier or boarder just landed after a jump, or came to an abrupt stop, then paused to rest before continuing down the mountain, that scenario could potentially result in an inadvertent 911 call.

The Feb. 3 call from Anthony Lakes initially went to the Union County Sheriff's Office, as the ski area is just over the Union County line (the boundary between Baker and Union counties is Anthony Creek, which flows out of Anthony Lake just east of the ski area's main parking lot).

Union County forwarded the call to the Baker County Sheriff's Office at 11:56 a.m., said Lt. Mandy Wirth, who leads the dispatch division at the Baker County Sheriff's Office.

The original 911 call included GPS data that clearly plotted the site of the call as on the ski slopes, Wirth said.

After ski patrollers checked the site and found no one there, they called the sheriff's office to say there was no need to send emergency responders.

Wirth said that although the Feb. 3 incident was the first she's aware of involving a skier or snowboarder at Anthony Lakes, it wasn't the first such call resulting from a device.

She said she was working on the 911 desk in November 2022 when she received an automated call stating that an Apple watch user had taken a hard fall and was not responding.

The location was in Baker City.

Wirth said she could hear activity, including voices, in the background.

She broke the connection and called the phone number that was included with the initial call.

She spoke to a man who had been using a chain saw, which apparently triggered the automatic 911 call.

The man was not hurt and did not realize the call had been made, Wirth said.

In that case, Wirth was able to call the phone because the number was part of the 911 call screen.

But that wasn't the case with the automated call from Anthony Lakes, she said. That's apparently because cell service is spotty in that area, unlike in Baker City where the chain saw operator's call came from.

According to Apple, devices can make an emergency call even in areas without cell coverage, if a satellite-based service is available.

The crash detection feature can be turned off on iPhones or Apple watches.