by AllThingsECC.com | Aug 3, 2019 | Comm Center News
THIEF RIVER FALLS, Minn.
— Later this month, emergency dispatchers in northwestern Minnesota
will be able to get a closer glimpse of what’s happening on the other
side of the cellphone during a 911 call.
The
Pennington County Sheriff’s Office is in the process of installing
technology that will allow cellphone callers to stream live video and
audio to dispatchers when they call 911 for help.
Here’s
how it works: A caller on a cellphone dials 911 within the Pennington
County service area. If the dispatcher who answers the call thinks it
would be helpful to be able to see and hear what the caller is seeing
and hearing, they can send a text message to the caller’s cellphone,
asking to take over the camera. It’s up to the caller to accept or
decline.
“They have to agree to open up their camera so it can be activated,” explained Sheriff Ray Kuznia.
by AllThingsECC.com | Aug 3, 2019 | Comm Center News
San Francisco, California – Governor Gavin Newsom today toured a
9-1-1 call center at the San Francisco Department of Emergency
Management to highlight the new funding included in the 2019 budget act
to modernize 9-1-1 systems across the state and be better prepared to
assist those in need during emergencies and natural disasters.
The 2019 budget act invests nearly $1 billion in funding for
emergency preparedness and response – which included a new, permanent
funding source to transform the state’s 9-1-1 system to better interface
with digital information systems and cell phones.
by AllThingsECC.com | Aug 2, 2019 | Comm Center News
Across Canada, the public safety 9-1-1 community is facing a
critical, pivotal moment in its history. The existing 9-1-1 system was
designed in an era of landline telephones and assumes the calls are
coming from fixed, known addresses. Today, most emergency calls
originate from smartphones and IP devices, often while away from home.
As a result, these changes are driving this historic evolution to
next-generation 9-1-1 (NG9-1-1).
by AllThingsECC.com | Aug 2, 2019 | Comm Center News
The 9-1-1 professionals who answer these calls are hard-working,
dedicated public servants. They are super-multi-taskers who ensure the
rapid, safe arrival of field responders, and so much more. On any given
day, they may be called upon to provide medical instructions to save
people from choking and heart attacks. They help people on the verge of
suicide get the help they need. They analyze the stress in a caller’s
tone of voice and background noises to assess situations they cannot
see. They coordinate the activities of police, fire and
emergency-medical crews dealing with active shooters and other
potentially-deadly hazards on the scene.
by AllThingsECC.com | Aug 2, 2019 | Comm Center News
A new law is going to make it easier for people to get emergency help. Kari’s Law
Will require direct 9-1-1 dialing without the need to dial extra digits.
Kari’s law will make sure that people don’t have
to dial a number to dial out when they are calling 9-1-1 in an
emergency. But the law only applies to multi-line phones installed or
manufactured *after February 2020.
So what about older phones?
by AllThingsECC.com | Aug 2, 2019 | Comm Center News
A Lorain County dispatcher found himself on the other end of a 911
call Monday after his wife delivered a baby on their bathroom floor.
Sarah Davis suddenly went into labor at their house and
quickly realized that there wouldn’t be enough time to get to the
hospital, even though it was only three minutes away.
She said there wasn’t even time to call 911 before the baby
was born, so her husband Mike used his dispatcher training to get
through the basics.
“We always joked about him delivering the baby because he
had the training,” Sarah said. “… It was so fast; there was no time to
freak out.”
After the baby boy was born, Mike called dispatch and spoke
with a friend of his to get him through the next steps. Sarah said she
noticed that was when it sank in for him and he panicked a bit.
