Emergency calls must travel now
Technology allows us to keep watch from all over the world; how does 911 dispatch handle long-distance calls?
Generally a call to 911 is about an emergency in the area you are, but technology has become so advanced, you can now be alerted to one even when you’re far away from home. The only trouble is getting through to 911 in the city where you need the assistance.
Recent media reports revealed that a Calgary man, who was travelling in Texas at the time, could see from an app on his phone and security cameras that thieves were in the process of breaking into his home.
He called 911 and was talking to an operator in Houston who could not connect him to Calgary 911.
There are also electronic devices now that can help a senior live independently with the support of an adult child living far away. Alerts can be sent to the adult child’s phone if the senior has fallen or wandered away from their own home. The adult child then needs to reach 911 in the city where their parent is living.
It is not a situation that the 911 call centre in Medicine Hat has faced very often but the city does have some measures in place, says Simon Amos, manager community access, community development department.
“Medicine Hat 911 Dispatch Centre has some “Hot Keys” or pre-programmed buttons set up in our phone decks for those agencies we commonly transfer to,” said Amos.
These include Calgary police, Edmonton police, RCMP, Alberta Health Services and more. If elderly parents in another city within Alberta have a medical issue, those calls are put through to the ambulance dispatch centre in Calgary, said Amos.
“If calls are received for help out of province, there are various tools a 911 Dispatch Operator can use to assist the caller,” said Amos. “We have access to the Canadian Police Information Centre directory, which houses all police agency phone numbers; and of course we have Google search.”
Amos acknowledges that forwarding 911 callers from outside of Alberta “can be problematic.” In most cases 911 will provide the caller with another number to call.
The Calgary man on business in Texas ended up calling the non-emergency number for Calgary police. After explaining his situation he was put through to 911 Calgary. In a media interview he said by the time he’d got through to the right people, and then police got to his home, the thieves had already taken items and left his property.