These were the worst 911 calls made in B.C. last year

B.C.'s emergency dispatch centre for 911 calls, E-Comm, has released it annual list of the top 10 most unnecessary calls made to 911 last year.

Some of the top offenders include callers complaining that someone wasn't picking up after their dog to "people were playing basketball on a public court at nighttime."

Emergency call takers are reminding British Columbians to avoid dialing 911 if they're not in true emergencies as call volumes reach record highs in the province.

E-Comm, which handles 99 per cent of 911 calls made in B.C., says there were a record-setting 2.1 million calls made to 911 last year, up 1.8 per cent from the total number of calls made in 2021.

Many of those calls included general questions, complaints, or other concerns that aren't considered emergences, which ties up phone lines for real public safety emergencies.

"We regularly get callers stating 'I know this isn’t an emergency, but I didn’t know who else to call,'" said E-Comm call taker Mark Kolomejac in a release Wednesday.

"If you have a flat tire or a broken windshield wiper for example, we can’t help you on 911, but a towing company or roadside assistance will be able to get you the support that you need," he said.

According to the emergency dispatch centre, these were the top 10 worst reasons people called 911 in B.C. in 2022:

1. The nozzle wasn’t working at the gas station
2. They had a flat tire
3. People were playing basketball on a public court at night time
4. Someone wasn’t picking up after their dog
5. Someone was using their garbage bin
6. Complaining about children drawing with chalk at a playground
7. Their phone was stuck in a bench
8. Looking for an update on a nationwide telco outage
9. Someone called 9-1-1 because they had a broken window wiper
10. Someone cut in line at the car wash