Safety director: State's figure for local 911 emergency calls way off

Jan. 12—A first glance shows Mercer County has one of the highest rate of 911 emergency phone calls in the state. But not on second glance.

Social media got fired up this week when a map popped up showing the county's rate of 911 emergency calls per 1,000 residents in 2022 was 1,374 — second only to Philadelphia County with 1,503.

That's flat-out wrong, Frank Jannetti, director of Mercer County's Department of Public Safety said.

"That's impossible," Jannetti said. "There's no way our rate is that high."

It took a little reverse engineering to find how the figures came about.

The map was created by the Center for Rural Pennsylvania, seen as a reputable, bi-partisan state agency that compiles data for the state legislature. A map created in 2017 showed Mercer County's 911 call rate per 1,000 was 431 — way below the 2022 figure.

Johnathan Johnson, senior policy analyst with the Harrisburg agency, readily acknowledged the organization produced the maps with the 911 figures for all of the state's 67 counties.

"But all of our numbers we use come from the state," Johnson said.

Sure enough, the center's figures were on the Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency website.

When shown PEMA's website's figures, Jannetti said he immediately spotted major mistakes.

"These numbers are way, way off," he said.

By far the biggest mistake, Jannetti said, shows the total call volume for the county's center, 150,127, was the same as the total number of emergency 911 calls received.

"That's just wrong," he said.

There's a huge difference in the number of overall calls and those that are 911-dialed emergency calls, Jannetti said.

"The total 911 phone calls aren't right," he said.

Exact figures for last year are still being compiled, but Jannetti estimated that the county's 911 center got 176,000 total calls in 2023, with most — about 130,000 — non-emergency calls, Jannetti said.

Non-emergency calls could include things like complaints on barking dogs and a car blocking someone's driveway.

"And we get calls from police just checking on information," Jannetti said.

He wasn't sure if PEMA was given the wrong numbers or the numbers given were misinterpreted.

"We're going through our data now and will make sure that they're getting the right figures and correct," Jannetti said.

The number of emergency calls a county receives is important as it not only can affect staffing levels required at the 911 center, but also for community police, fire and ambulance services and hospital emergency rooms.

Mercer County isn't unique in having questionable state figures.

In 2017 PEMA figures used by the Center for Rural Pennsylvania shows Crawford County's 911 call rate per 1,000 residents was 363 but soared to 908 in 2022. Similarly, Warren County's 911 call rate was 362 in 2017 and 979 in 2022. And there's other examples.

This revelation has caused the Center for Rural Pennsylvania to take a second look on how it uses 911 data, Johnson said.

"We need to do more research on how things are changing there," he said.

PEMA didn't immediately respond to a Friday afternoon email.

Jannetti said the 911 had a good 2023 in handling emergency calls. Mercer County Commissioner Tim McGongile agreed.

"The 911 center does and excellent job and is properly staffed," McGonigle said. "They handled a huge number of emergency calls when we had two really bad storms last spring."

Pine Township-based Superior Ambulance had a 10 percent increase in calls last year, Doug Dick, Superior's owner who also oversees its operations.

"We're seeing an increase in behavioral health calls of all ages," Dick said.

These are cases where someone is endangering themselves or others.

"If no crime is committed it doesn't involve law enforcement, and if a house isn't on fire it's not the fire department," Dick said. "So guess who gets it — we in EMS (emergency medical services.)"

He called for better 911 distribution for non-emergency situations.

"We're seeing a lot of lift assist calls where people fell and need help getting back into their wheelchair,"Dick said. "This isn't a true emergency call."