Nonemergency calls can tie up a line for those that have an urgent emergency.
INDIANAPOLIS — Emergency operators say you’d be surprised how often people call 911 for something other than an actual emergency.
“Pretty much anything like overflowing sinks, ‘I’ve been locked out of my apartment,’ there’s nothing else going on,” said Melanie Castille, dayshift manager at Marion County’s 911 Center…
BOULDER, Colo. — The U.S. Department of Commerce’s First Responder Network Authority (FirstNet Authority) and National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) announced today the launch of the Public Safety Immersive Test Center in Boulder, Colorado, to spur the development and deployment of technologies critical to effective public safety response. Through this partnership, NIST’s Public Safety Communications Research (PSCR) Division and the FirstNet Authority plan to enable research and development, education, and training, by offering the facility at no cost to public safety agencies and organizations that support public safety response efforts, including private sector and academic institutions…
When Amanda Bryans figured out that her husband was having a stroke, she immediately called 911. But instead of speaking to someone, she heard something that “sounded like a fax tone,” the Wheaton resident posted April 18 on the neighborhood platform Nextdoor.
“I hung up and my phone rang with a message to push 1 if I had an emergency. I pushed 1 and got cut off,” Bryans wrote. “I repeated this whole sequence this until on the 4th try, I was connected to a 911 operator. The ambulance arrived shortly thereafter. The whole thing was unnerving but delayed he’ll only by 3-4 minutes. I guess the message is that if you need help, you may need to repeat 911 call until you get through…
CHICOPEE, MA (WGGB/WSHM) – When calling 911, a dispatcher is the first one to answer your call and they are a critical lifeline for many. Western Mass News recently learned that there is a dispatcher shortage locally with one dispatch center in Chicopee is four dispatchers away from potentially having a delay in emergency response.
[Reporter: Are you really able to manage?]
“We are managing right now. If we were to get any lower, we would be struggling. We’d have to consider shortening our minimum staffing,” said Erin Hastings, executive director of WestComm.
Right now, WestComm is short six dispatchers with 30 currently on staff. This is the biggest shortage Hastings has seen in her 30-year career…
Four Guilford Metro 911 (GM 911) employees were honored at the NC Public Safety Communications Conference in Wilmington, NC last week.
