Yesterday, I bent the metal clasp on my slacks so this morning I took up walking. I got up a little earlier, left my hotel, and wandered through the surrounding neighborhood. I soon realized I would need a short cut back to the hotel in order to make it to work on time, and a set of train tracks looked like the perfect route to circumvent the winding streets.
It was perfect, on the other side of the tracks was the old highway (which I knew the hotel was on) running parallel to it. I was almost back to the hotel when I noticed a Lexus lying very awkwardly in a ditch. At first, I thought it was a runaway car that crashed. It could only be seen from the tracks and I began to worry that someone might be in there and that no one had found them. I was relieved to discover no one in the car, and came to the conclusion that it was probably stolen and ditched. I decided to call 911 to let them know of its location, so the expensive car could be reclaimed.
I could not imagine that it would have taken 10 minutes for me to explain where I was, but it did.
The problem was I didn’t have an address. All I knew was the exit number off the highway, the name of the hotel, and that I was 150 yards south of the building on a set of railroad tracks. None of this information seemed good enough. As I talked to her on the phone I was walking back to the hotel, and I finally gave her its address, and that seemed fit into their system.
It made me think of a situation that happened to a friend of mine in 2000. An elderly woman made an improper left hand turn and he hit her doing close to 50 mph. He called 911, told them he had been in an accident, the road he was on, and the building he was in front of. The last thing he remembered before passing out was the operator telling him she needed an address.
It wasn’t until another passerby called 911, that an ambulance finally arrived.
The 911 system failed in both of these situations because it could not deal with what they deemed imperfect information. The process needs to allow for partial information to be passed on in case the 911 operator cannot quickly and efficiently pin point a location. I know our rescue services study and memorize their coverage area in order to respond as quickly as possible.
If the 911 operator doesn’t know where the rail road tracks 150 yards south of the Holiday Inn on exit 11 off of I-85 is, I know the police, fire, or EMS workers will.
