You’re out and about and a car crash happens right in front of you. You quickly dial 911 on your cellphone to report it. But was that the right thing to do?
But here are a few tips to ensure the right emergency agency is contacted and you give the right information.
Cindy Jones, a communications supervisor with Santa Rosa police, recommends that you program into your cellphone the seven-digit emergency number for your local police and fire departments. The numbers are listed in the phone book.
The reason for this is that if, let’s say, you’re out in Santa Rosa and see a crash. If you’re near Highway 101, your 911 call may be picked up by a cell tower and routed to the CHP, which then will transfer you to Santa Rosa. That could delay a response from Santa Rosa police or Fire Department as you explain to the CHP dispatcher what’s going on. If you’re at home or at work, dial 911 from your home or work phone.
By calling your programmed emergency number, your call goes straight to the police or fire and when you start telling about a crash at “Fourth and Mendo,” the dispatcher will know what city you’re talking about.
Jones said you should make your emergency call specific and precise: What the emergency is, where it is, is anyone injured or possibly injured. She said sometimes callers ramble and dispatchers have to interrupt to get the basic facts so that they know whether to send police officers, firefighters and/or ambulance crews and where.
“People think that dispatchers are rude and uncaring” when they interrupt, “but we have to get the details. Getting them sometimes is difficult,” she said.
If you think someone might have been injured, be sure to include that. When two cars collided May 3 in front of The Press Democrat in downtown Santa Rosa, airbags in one car deployed and the driver didn’t get out. But some callers apparently didn’t say anything about a possible injury and an ambulance and firetrucks didn’t arrive for about 25 minutes.
For dispatchers, a key fact to find out is where the emergency is happening. While calls from home phones automatically provide their location, dispatchers still need to know where the emergency is — inside the home, in the backyard, down the street, etc.
Jones said calling 911 or other emergency number is only for emergencies.
The fact that your neighbor’s dog is barking is not an emergency unless the dog is barking because a stranger is climbing into your neighbor’s window, she said.
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Carinjk
Good information!
May 15th, 2012 2:18 pm
Carinjk
Good, useful information!
May 15th, 2012 2:19 pm
Cyndi
I hear this a lot but it just doesn’t make sense to me.
I live in unincorporated county near the border of Petaluma. My emergency calls go to the county. Say I want to drive to Santa Rosa. I leave the county, drive through northern Petaluma, head back into the county, pass Penngrove (which has its own fire department, so is that county, because it’s not incorporated?), go through Cotati then Rohnert Park, and finally reach Santa Rosa, with perhaps some more county areas on the way.
Am I supposed to program a dozen numbers into my phone for Sonoma County, then another set for Marin, and more for other counties I visit? How do I fumble through the list (my unsmart phone doesn’t let me categorize numbers, they’re just in random order) to the right one? Do I need to consult a map before I call? City limits are only marked on a few selected main streets, and leaving a city to enter the unincorporated county almost never is.
The one time I called 911 from Hwy 101 (I spotted a fire starting in a field), I didn’t know where I was (somewhere between Petaluma and Rohnert Park). For all I knew, the section of freeway I was on was in a different locality from the field 100 yards away.
I get it about reducing the call load on the dispatch centers (the real reason, so I’m told, for dialing direct). It’s not just about possible delays. But isn’t reaching the wrong emergency line just as bad, or worse, than getting routed through CHP?
May 16th, 2012 6:53 pm
Seth
Cyndi, you don’t have to plug those numbers in but I personally have and it makes the response time faster. If you think the only reason you are being told this is to make the dispatcher call load lighter, trust me their load is plenty heavy without those calls. It simply causes less confusion for the CHP dispatcher in Vallejo who doesn’t know where B park is in Rohnert Park. It’s just faster response time. So you can plug in a few numbers to the cities you frequent a lot or save those spots for Domino’s and Starbucks.
June 1st, 2012 12:12 pm
Chris
If you are on a rural road try to give a Milepost and nearest cross street. That Milepost information can be critical in making sure the nearest agency responds.
June 12th, 2012 11:16 am