Making Technology help in an Emergency

Milford 911, what is your emergency? Time is critical in dealing with true emergencies, no matter if they are a medical emergency, serious vehicle crash or a building fire with people trapped. It is how you contact 911 and what information you provide the dispatcher with that is the key on how fast you receive help.

The Milford Emergency Operations 911 Center has already fielded 22,694 “911” emergency calls in 2009. Of those calls 8,628 where received by landline telephone and an amazing 13,822 were received by cellular telephone with the remainder being received by Voice Over Internet Protocal (VoIP) calls, such as Vonage or Optimum.

More and more households are trying to reduce monthly expenditures and sometimes the household telephone is one that needs to be eliminated.

The Milford Emergency Operations Center began upgrades to its 911 center in the year 2000. These upgrades to the Enhanced 911 (E911) are still occurring as technology changes and cell phone carriers make changes to their networks. Currently the Milford system is in Phase 2 of the upgrades, this allows the dispatcher to view the telephone number of the person calling and also a location of the caller on a computer map.

The problem sometimes lies in where does the signal go when you push the send button on your cell phone. As everyone knows, cellular phone towers are located throughout the country. When that send button is pushed, the signal can and sometimes does end up going to a cellular tower that is not in the area where you are needing help. This situation occurred in Stratford last week at 35 Justice Avenue where two people died at a structure fire. One of the initial calls were made from a cell phone and that signal went to a cell tower on Bridgeport Avenue in Milford. The caller did not know this and just kept repeating that help was needed at 35 Justice Avenue. Milford Dispatchers quickly realized that no such street existed in Milford and asked if this call was in Stratford. It was then that the call was then transferred to the Stratford 911 call center. This happens quite frequent in the Milford 911 center, so much that the number for the Long Island 911 center is a pre-programmed button on the computer screen to transfer the calls.

When a person dials 911 from a cell phone the signal may or may not go to that City or town that the person in need of help is located in. The Connecticut State Police answer many of the cell phones 911 calls because many of the cellular towers are located in the I95 transportation corridor.

So do people waste precious seconds looking for a landline telephone to call, no, we can save those precious seconds. We just have to make sure that the caller stays calm and give vital information to the dispatchers.

• When the 911 center answers the call, the most important thing to do is to remain calm and speak clearly to the dispatcher. Many times the scene is chaotic and people are screaming, this makes it very difficult for the dispatcher to get the correct information. You are the dispatchers Eyes & Ears.
• Know where you are. Give the City / Town that you need help in first. This information will allow the answering 911 call center to properly direct your call.
• Tell the dispatcher what is wrong and what you need.
• Provide the dispatcher with directions, landmarks or identification markings for areas that may be hard to see from the street. Make an effort to be as detailed as possible.
• Answer all the questions that the dispatcher is asking you. This allows information that will help the first responders. Many times, the address is already passed to another dispatcher who is sending units to your location while the original dispatcher is asking you questions. The questions allow the dispatchers to send the appropriate response as quickly as possible.
• Provide a call back number and your name just in case the 911 call center needs to call you back for more information or the first responders have trouble locating you.
• Never Hang up. You may have called 911 by accident, or your situation may have resolved itself, but it is important to let the operator know this. If you end the call abruptly, the operator is going to assume that something is wrong and either they are going to call you back or send help anyway. This will take away from the call center’s ability to handle other calls and perhaps use resources that are needed elsewhere.
  

Although the recent incident in Stratford had a tragic end to it, recent cellular 911 phone calls were successful because of technology. In one situation in Milford, a frantic father in West Haven called 911 from his cell phone and the call was answered by Milford dispatchers. While one dispatcher was transferring the call and information to the West Haven 911 center, the other dispatcher provided pre-arrival instructions and the children were born successfully in the house.

In another incident a boater struck an object in Long Island Sound and his boat began to sink. He placed a call to 911 from a cell phone which was received by the Milford Emergency Operations Center, before he could relay his location his boat sank putting him into the water and making his cell phone inoperable. Milford Dispatchers were able to retrieve the GPS coordinates from his 911 call and this information was relayed to Milford’s Fire Boat which was able to make the rescue.

So while cellular 911 technology is still evolving, it is important that callers remember that the information they provide can ultimately make a difference in an emergency. An informed caller, is 911's best asset.