Not All Emergencies are the Same

In total, our emergency dispatch center received 1,114,054 emergency communications calls last year, and not all of them are what you might expect. Learn about some examples of calls that they received and how they handled the situations.

As seen in the above video, Kings III’s Emergency Dispatch Center deals with all sorts of emergency communications calls that don’t exactly first come to mind when you think of an elevator or pool help phone. In fact during the year of 2015, at Kings III’s emergency communications center alone, a total of 1,114,054 total calls were made into the station. While the majority of the calls that were made were in fact elevator entrapments, a total of 3721 calls made involved fire, EMS and police dispatches. When you think of an emergency communications phone in your elevator or by your pool, these types of instances aren’t always immediately thought of, but they are sometimes the most important ones to deal with.

As heard in the first instance during the video, an emergency communications call was placed in this case because an elevator entrapment caused a claustrophobic expectant mother to experience health-related issues. While this type of situation is not what you imagine using emergency elevator phones for, the reality is that our emergency communications dispatchers see health issues more often than one might think, as many times the panic or surprise brought on by an entrapment can lead to pressing health issues.

Believe it or not, our emergency communications center receives domestic dispute calls like the second situation presented in this video fairly regularly. Placed from the pool help phone on the property, this call was made because the man did not have access to his phone due to the circumstances that the dispute had put him in. For those who find themselves in an emergency situation, we actually recommend placing the call from an emergency help phone, such as by the pool or in a parking garage, if you can easily access one nearby, because these types of phones are able to deliver the emergency communications center with much more accurate location data. Cell phones do not provide enough location information to dispatchers, and in some cases can even hurt in locating an individual: the cell phone will say it is in the county of the nearest cell phone tower to it, which is not always the same as the actual county that the cell phone is in.

The third and final call highlighted in this video is the call placed to the emergency communications center regarding a man who collapsed on a multifamily property. Again, this call was placed by the pool help phone, further calling attention to the fact that these phones are used for much more than drownings and potential drownings. You never know where you will be when a health emergency occurs. When a situation like this occurs, the person will always use the quickest means to a solution, which often includes a highly visible and easily accessible help phone nearby.

Because you never know what type of emergency that you are going to get, our emergency communications center, called the EDC (Emergency Dispatch Center) receives the highest amount of training in order to adequately handle situations like the ones presented above. All EDC emergency communications dispatchers are Advanced Emergency Medical Dispatcher, Red Cross CPR and HIPAA certified so that they are fully equipped to provide knowledgeable assistance while dispatching help to the area that needs it. To put this in perspective, not all 911 emergency communications centers require their dispatchers to be AEMD certified.

You never know what type of emergency could happen on your property, and as you have probably learned thus far, you can never be fully prepared on what all to expect. It is so important to educate yourself and be aware of all the types of instances that you may be liable for. For more information, visit www.kingsiii.com.