Talk about a smart phone. This one called police as its owner, now a drug suspect in jail, was involved in an alleged illegal transaction.

Hall County 911 got a call about 1:30 a.m. Wednesday, but when the operator answered, no one was on the other end of the line.

"The dispatcher stated that ... she could overhear several individuals talking about a drug transaction involving prescription narcotics," sheriff's spokesman Col. Jeff Strickland said Thursday.

A deputy was sent to the source of the call, a Waffle House restaurant on Lanier Islands Parkway in South Hall.

"Once he arrived, he still didn't know who had the phone," Strickland said.

When he started talking to restaurant employees, the dispatcher said she could hear the deputy's voice in the 911 call.

"The phone was in an employee's pocket," Strickland said. "As the deputy was talking to the employee, the dispatcher could hear the conversation between the deputy and the employee."

Authorities then radioed the deputy to let him know he was talking to the suspect.

When questioned about his phone, the employee discovered it had somehow "pocket-dialed" 911, Strickland said.

After being told the entire conversation regarding the drug transaction had been recorded at 911 Dispatch, the suspect cooperated with the deputy and Strickland said he was found to be in possession of hydrocodone and alprazolam tablets.

Police charged Daniel Moore, 18, with possession of the drugs. He is being held in the Hall County Jail.

Strickland didn't have other details about the phone, including what kind it was.

"This is a first for me for an arrest like that," he said. "For us to record a drug transaction as it transpires, that's a first."

District Attorney Lee Darragh said a copy of the 911 recording could not be released since it is part of an open investigation.