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…
PIERRE, S.D. (KELO) — South Dakota state government is launching a campaign to recruit telecommunicators to take phone calls and dispatch emergency services at 911 centers.
The Sioux Falls-based marketing firm Epicosity has signed a three-year no-bid contract for $44,500 with the state Department of Public Safety and the South Dakota 911 Coordination Board.
South Dakota has 32 county, municipal and tribal public-service answering points… READ MORE
While participating in the 2022 Enterprise Connect annual conference panel on Managing E911 for Compliance and Safety, Martha Buyer, an attorney who was involved with the creation of Kari’s Law, stated, “Enterprises that operate multi-line telephone systems, and have either installed new systems or completed a major upgrade since February of 2018, don’t really have an excuse for non-compliance that would likely hold up in court. There are other areas of state and federal laws that if not specifically requiring compliance, suggest that non-compliance is a bad place to be. Specifically, OSHA regulations require organizations provide a safe workplace. It would not be a tough argument to make in court that anything that could be construed as denial to access of 911 absolutely creates an unsafe workplace… READ MORE
