On March 14, 2020, I was mowing the lawn and my phone called 911 and notified my emergency contacts. Since the mower was making a lot of noise, I didn’t hear the text from Amy. It was hours before I noticed my phone was locked on a screen stating “Your emergency contacts have been notified.”. It was locked and would not reset by normal means. I did a google search on how to unlock the phone and found that if you press the volume up, volume down, and hold the side button long enough, you will get the option to power off. After the phone came back up, I noticed the 911 call in recent history along with Amy’s missed call and text. I thought is was some fluke and made an effort not to take the phone with me while mowing.

Then today, May 11, 2020, I decided to mow the back acre at lunch. I took the phones with me since it was a normal workday and didn’t want to miss any calls or text. Again the phone called 911 and notified my emergency contacts. This time I did hear the work phone when it rang. Kay was checking on me and informed me that it had happened again. After some research, I found what I hope is the cause of the problem.

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/8206761
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208076

Apparently the cupholder on the mower was just the right size to hold down the side button and a volume button. I have inspected the cup holder and verified that it is the culprit. I actually put both phones in it top down. With just my phone in it, it fits snug but won’t press the buttons. But if I put both phones in the cup holder, there is pressure applied to both side buttons of my larger iPhone Max. I have followed the directions in the second link to disable Call with Side Button and Auto Call. Apparently I will still have the issue with both side buttons putting the phone in Emergency SOS mode but it will not time out and call by itself.

Notice in the last photo, the marks up and down where the phone was in contact with the sides.