Lee Board of County Commissioners and the Lee County Sheriff’s Office announced that Next Generation 911 technology has improved location services for 911 calls effective immediately. The upgrades also mean that residents and visitors soon will be able to send pictures and video through text-to-911 services to assist emergency responders.
By providing callers with a link to upload files, emergency services call takers in Lee County will be able to see pictures, videos or livestream from a scene. Callers will not have the option to send until prompted. Visit www.leegov.com/911 in the coming weeks for final dates to be announced.
The upgrades are part of the commitment the Lee Board of County Commissioners has made to Public Safety technology initiatives, which began with the implementation of text to 911 services in December.
The Next Generation 911 upgrades were announced Wednesday in tandem with both the 35th anniversary of 911 in Lee County and National Public Safety Telecommunicators Week.
Residents and visitors are reminded that a voice call to 911 remains the most effective method for requesting emergency assistance. Call takers get a great deal of information from background noise, changes in voice and breathing and other sounds that come from a voice call.
Mobile carriers handle texts to 911 like any other message. You can experience the same service speeds or delays, depending on network strength in your area. A text or data plan is required to text to 911 and regular rates apply.
The additional technology services that are available effective immediately to improve the handling of 911 calls in Lee County include:
• Advanced location services, which will allow emergency communications personnel to send help with pinpoint accuracy. o Call takers will have a map to show exactly where the call comes from and will share that information with first responders. o It is still important to know the location of your emergency as this can confirm what the call center is seeing and help emergency responders get there as quickly as possible.
• RapidSOS integration, which will send vital information from both vehicle and phone. o Vehicles with Automatic Collision Notification (ACN) software will immediately transmit crash speed, force of impact, number of passengers, location, and size of vehicle involved in a collision to the nearest call center.
• An automated callback system, which can be used in the event of multiple hang-ups at the same time.
More resources:
• If you have an iPhone and would like instructions for setting up a Medical ID in the included Health app: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT207021.
• If you are not an iPhone user, you can create a free Emergency Health Profile registered to your mobile phone number: https://www.emergencyprofile.org/.
Original source can be found here.
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