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ALTA — Conventional wisdom says you shouldn't drunk dial people. Especially if the number you're calling is 911.
A 45-year-old employee at Alta Ski Resort was arrested Friday for investigation of emergency reporting abuse and intoxication after police say they received the latest in an ongoing problem of false 911 calls.
Since May, the man has made 18 calls to 911 using two cellphones, according to a Salt Lake County Jail report. During each call, the man claims "to have an emergency in Little Cottonwood Canyon. The calls were made from a disconnected cellphone and all were determined to be not credible as no emergencies were found at the time of the calls," the report states.
On Friday, 911 received a call from the same phone from a man who claimed "he was stuck on a cliff," according to the report.
Officers investigating the calls determined "the GPS coordinates from the calls, always placed the phone called coming from nearby the Peruvian Lodge at Alta," the report states.
Officers came up with the name of an employee who was staying in one of the rooms. Investigators went to the room and asked the man if they could search his phones, according to the report.
"I looked at the call history and located 17 phone calls to 911 that ranged from June 19th until August 3rd," the officer wrote in the report. "I located 18 phone calls to 911 between the 2 phones."
When confronted about the calls, the man "said he did it when he consumed alcohol and did not know why."
Police believe the man had been drinking at the time of his arrest, the report states.
