A woman who rang 999 more than 700 times - including 97 calls on Christmas Day - has been hit with a heavy fine and banned from contacting emergency services.
The nuisance caller appeared in court charged with persistently calling the life-saving line to cause annoyance, inconvenience and anxiety.
After pleading guilty, she was ordered to pay £2,000 compensation to East Midlands Ambulance Service and barred from calling 999 for five years - unless in the case of a genuine emergency.
Her campaign of nuisance calls peaked on Christmas Day 2017 when she rang the ambulance service 97 times.
In total, she made 740 calls to emergency services without ever having a medical emergency, costing the NHS an estimated £13,276.
Her punishment also includes a 12-month community order and 15 days of rehabilitation activity. She will also receive treatment from mental health services. Her name has not been released by the Ambulance Service.
Ian Brett, emergency operations commander, was overseeing the control room on one occasion when the caller used three different phones to ring 68 times between midnight and 8am, which prevented three 999 call handlers from taking real emergency calls.
Ian said: "I was made aware of the caller as she was repeatedly pushing the redial button on two mobile phones and her landline. At one point, the caller placed her phones together so our 999 call handlers were talking to each other.
"This meant that three of the 14,999 call handlers were committed to answering this one regular caller rather than a member of the community needing emergency medical help.
"At this time in the morning fortunately we had enough staff on duty to handle the 999 calls without impacting other patients.
"However, if this was to occur later when the snow arrived and the demand increased there would have been a real threat to our ability to respond to patients in the community experiencing real medical emergencies."
Deborah Powell, frequent caller lead for EMAS, explained that all 740 unnecessary emergency calls took place in just two-and-a-half months between November 29, 2017, and February 11 this year.
She said: "We will continue to prosecute those who misuse our service to ensure that the support is there for those who need it in a real medical emergency.
"By repeatedly making inappropriate calls to the 999 service during our busiest time of the year, this caller demonstrated flagrant disregard for others experiencing life-threatening emergencies who genuinely need our help.
"We are pleased with the outcome of this case because it acknowledges the impact that frequent callers such as this person have on our vital service and helps to protect ourselves and other emergency services from future inappropriate calls.
"We would urge people again to make the right 999 call and only phone us in a life-threatening emergency."
