Emergency Callback Mode, ever heard of it?

Just thought I would share an interesting story.

I called 911 the other night to report something and after I was done with the call at the top of the screen my BB said "Emergency Callback Mode". It wouldn't go away after a while so I powered off/on the phone and it went away after I turned it back on. Just used the power button, not a battery pull.

In case anyone's interested why I called 911... the other night I was leaving my parents house to go home. I was leaving the neighborhood, and it was about 1:30 AM. I came to a "T" intersection at the stop sign. There was caution tape blocking the road. It was tied from the stop sign across the road to another road sign. I knew it was odd since I was coming from the only possible way (T intersection) and it was late at night, no accidents, no cops around, it was dead in the area.

When I told the 911 Operator he said it was happening all around the area that night and it was a prank. They were dispatching police out to take it down. I gave him the location and went home. I turned around and drove through a parking lot for a school nearby to get back onto the other road.

Yeah, the emergency callback mode is so the 911 operator can put you in touch with other emergency personnel.

I witnessed a car accident a few months ago ( drunk driver just missed me, rear ended the car in front of me which was pushed through the intersection and hit another vehicle head on.). It happened late at night and I was the first person there. One lady was seriously injured and I was performing first aid when I called 911 (I have to take a first aid course every year through the military). After I had given the location details to the 911 op, she told me she was putting me in touch with the paramedics. My phone went into emergency callback mode, and I got a call from the ambulance driver a moment later. He asked me for information about those who where injured and gave me further first aid instructions.

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I *think* it blocks other incoming calls so police/ paramedics/ 911 can get back in touch with you.

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How would it block incoming calls and not the police/fire calls. I'm intersted in knowing more about this.

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I had the same mode on my Treo the (only) time I called 911, but the screen stated it would time out and return to normal in a specified amount of time, which I think was 15 minutes...

It was a tractor trailer that had caught fire and was really neat...the brakes were smoking which made the tires catch fire which (very quickly) completely engulfed the trailer. The best thing? No one was hurt.

-neil

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Hey thanks everyone for the info. I wonder how many newer phones have this hidden feature? I wonder what the timeout, if any, is on the BB for this mode.

I don't remember seeing if mine stayed in emergency mode after I talked to the paramedics or not. I know that by the time I was on my way home after giving a statement to the police it had timed out and gone back to normal. That was over an hour later.

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Just checked the BB website. It says the timeout is set by the carrier, and that it will automatically exit emergency callback mode if a non-emergency Cal is made. It doesn't mention anything about blocking incoming calls, but it says txt messages and data are blocked. It states that the purpose of the mode is for 911 to be able to get back in touch with you, and gives 911 access to your GPS/ location info.

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I have an iDEN phone in addition to my BB, and I remember reading some articles on the how that network deals with 911 calls and some might relate to what "Emergency Callback Mode" is. With with the iDEN network if a 911 call is placed it forces the phone into full transmit power and higher priority on the towers. So like I said, it may or not relate to the BB, maybe someone else knows :)

A similar story happened to me yesterday... witnessed an accident on the fwy, tried calling 911, but it was busy!! so much for priority calling. It did block my data connection and texts. I let it be in Emergency Callback Mode... After approximately 3 minutes it went back to full mode. Im on Verizon Network.

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