Think 911 will save your life? Think again.
I stumbled across this article on the Globe & Mail this morning. Please read it, it could save your life.
I really think that you should read this article. But if you don’t, here is a very brief summary. Basically, Canada’s 911 system is outdated, and it’s costing lives. If you’re like me, maybe you always thought that if you were in a dire emergency, where you didn’t know where you are or cannot speak, 911 dispatch can simply trace your call to your location. That’s not the case in Canada. If you’re calling from a cellphone or an internet phone, your call cannot be pinpointed to your exact location.
In one case, a 39-year-old Somali man was beaten and dumped in a field, he called 911 from his cellphone but they could only trace his call to the nearest cell tower, which left a radius of about 15 km that he could be in. They found his body two days later. If this had happened in the United States, where the 911 technology is much more advanced, help would have been there within minutes.
Then there was the man who was in a car crash, he laid upside down in the ditch for two hours in -39 C weather. The 911 dispatch stayed on the phone with him and tried to keep him talking. She promised him they were close, but they weren’t, all they had narrowed it down to was about 40 square kilometres. This man survived, but it took emergency crews 3 1/2 hours to get to him.
Finally there is the Lucks, the biggest tragedy of all, their young baby boy stopped breathing and they called 911 from their internet phone. Because of a failure for the internet phone company to update the Luck’s new address, the ambulance was sent to their old address in Mississauga. Their 18-month-old son died, he would have survived if the ambulance had made it there sooner.
The United States mandated cellphone companies to update there networks in 2001. Now, if you dial 911 in the U.S. they can pinpoint your location within seconds. Why isn’t it like this in Canada? Money.
There’s no profit in 911 and wireless companies won’t make any money if they invest in the 911 system. The wireless companies are insisting that public money be used to pay for this. But wait, I pay 0.75 a month for a 911 fee on my Telus phone bill. That works out to $9 a year. If one million people are paying the same fee that means the cell phone company is raking in nine million a year for a 911 fee. There’s a lot more than one million people paying that fee. Where is that money going?
“Ms. Broomfield estimates Canada’s wireless companies collect a total of about $157-million a year from 911 fees. Those charges are between 50 cents and $1 per month in most provinces.
While a portion of that money, about a dime, goes toward the 911 system, the CRTC does not regulate where the rest goes. These fees have long been controversial; however, while the telephone companies use them to cover various 911 costs, they are not required to disclose where all of the money is spent.” (Globe & Mail, 2)
The money isn’t going towards saving lives that’s for sure. This is outrageous.
This article completely shocked me. This may sound morbid but I’ve imagined myself in dire situations before. What if someone breaks into my house and I only have time to dial 911 from my cell phone and drop it? What if I’m in an accident in the middle of nowhere and I don’t know where I am? What if those things happen to you?
“The solution would cost about $80-million, or as little as one cent on the average phone bill.” (Globe & Mail, 4).
What do you think?
