Fires, heart attacks, and home invasions are all good reasons to call 911. Getting a basketball stuck in a tree? Not so much.

Sadly, that’s just one of the many 911 nuisance calls operators at E-Comm, B.C.’s largest 911 centre, had to take this year.

In another incident, a caller asked E-Comm worker Harrison Kwan to find the phone number of a local tire dealership.

“Unfortunately I can’t give you that number, OK, because this is 911 – 911 is for life-and-death emergencies,” Kwan responds in a recording of the call.

E-Comm releases a list of the 10 worst nuisance calls every year to remind the public what 911 is and is not intended for.

Proper 911 should be reserved for real emergencies, which E-Comm defines as situations where someone’s health, safety or property is in jeopardy or where there’s a crime is in progress.

Finding out your roommate used your toothbrush or having a coffee shop refuse to offer a refill clearly do not fit the bill, but that didn’t stop people from reporting both to 911 this year. .

Misusing the service doesn’t just exasperate operators, according to E-Comm, it also diverts their attention from potentially pressing emergencies. Kwan said they have to treat every call as serious, even if it seems silly at first.

“We are trained to ask questions in case a caller is in distress and can’t speak freely,” Kwan said in a statement. “It’s only when I’m completely satisfied that the call is not a real emergency that I can disconnect and go back to answering other [911] calls. And that takes time.”

E-Comm’s list of the worst calls of 2015 includes:

  1. Requesting the number for a local tire dealership
  2. Reporting an issue with a vending machine
  3. Asking for the non-emergency line
  4. Reporting a car is parked too close to theirs
  5. “My son won’t put his seatbelt on”
  6. Coffee shop is refusing to refill coffee
  7. Asking if it’s OK to park on the street
  8. “My roommate used my toothbrush”
  9. Asking for help getting a basketball out of a tree
  10. Reporting their building’s air system is too loud

E-Comm takes 84 per cent of B.C.’s 911 call volume, answering more than 930,000 calls per year. It services Metro Vancouver, the Sunshine Coast, the Squamish-Lillooet Regional District and 21 other regional districts and communities across the province.