BEDFORD – The City of Bedford Police Department is encouraging residents of Lawrence County to sign up for Smart911, as the service stores key information for an individual that would be useful for emergency responders, should they need to call for them in the future.
This service is available free to residents across Lawrence County, not just Bedford through their website or their mobile app.
The aim of the program is to save time in the response that could be vital.
“Smart911 is essentially a safety profile that you can create that is a set of information about an individual or household that is contained within one account on Smart911.com or on the app. So, information on the safety profile can include details about all members of your home, phone numbers, addresses, including your home and work, even vacation homes,” said Ashlynne Bender, director of business and community development for the city of Bedford. “And you can add details about medical conditions, medications, vehicles, pets, and emergency contacts. And essentially that safety profile will allow dispatch, so 911 operators, to see all that important information if you were to call 911 In an emergency, which can save critical time in their response.”
Residents can create profiles that will be linked to their phone number where this information will be stored. Once they call, dispatchers will then be able to see important information that the user input, such as people living in the household, pets, vehicles, and more.
Bedford Police Chief Terry Moore explained how this can save time for responders.
“It saves us a lot of valuable time when we have the information readily available to us,” he said. “We’re not searching around trying to talk to neighbors, you’re trying to find an emergency contact. If this information is right there, it’s valuable time that can be saved.”
Moore went on to state that the information provided through this service is secure and available only to dispatchers in the event of a call.
“It’s absolutely safe. Ashlynne and I are not administrators of this program. We have no access other than what you put into the system when you dial 911 that pops up. For our dispatchers, we can’t go searching for this information. We have no control over going in and changing anything. I will say once the dispatchers received that 911 call, your information is there. It’s only available to dispatch for a few minutes. And then they lose that information off of their screen,” he explained.
Information provided to the app is also protected on the device itself through a PIN code, so anybody with access to a user’s phone would need to be able to input their code to view or change their information.
Some specific examples of ways this information could potentially be beneficial are calls where the resident has indicated there is a history of domestic violence in their home, which will flag any calls they make as potentially domestic abuse situations, or calls from residents with sensory issues that may not like to be touched, who can now provide that information to dispatch at the time of calling to help avoid any potential issues once responders arrive.
Listen to Bender and Moore’s full interview of WBIW’s Talk of the Town for complete details.
