By Pat Reavy
KSL
WEST VALLEY CITY, Utah — In less than a week, someone had made more than 4,000 calls to 911. At one point, emergency dispatcher Kari Bueno was receiving three to four calls a minute — all of them from the same number, which traced back to a disconnected cellphone.
The person making the calls was 30-year-old David VanBibber, who has a mental disability. His family says he functions on the level of an 8-year-old.
David VanBibber had an old cellphone that he used as an iPod to listen to music. The phone was disconnected and unable to make calls. But even disconnected cellphones are still able to call 911, which he was accidentally doing while trying to access his music.
The day the cellphone was taken away, Bueno came up with the idea of raising money among the dispatch center employees to buy an iPod Nano and a $100 iTunes gift certificate for him. On Wednesday, VanBibber and his family were invited to Valley Emergency Communications Center and were presented with the gifts.
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