County 911 center adds text service

CELINA - People in need of emergency services will have a new way to contact county 911 beginning next week.

Mercer County Sheriff Jeff Grey said central dispatch as of Monday will be able to receive emergency text messages via 911 from cellphone users with Verizon Wireless, Sprint, AT&T, T-Mobile or "any cellular service provider who uses these companies as their provider backbone."

Dispatchers have spent the last few weeks training with the new technology, Grey told the newspaper, adding the 911 text messages pop up on their computer screens. Grey said Mercer County is the ninth county in the state and the first in Northwest Ohio to have text-to-911 service.

"It has worked very, very well," he said of the test runs. "It was a matter of getting the dispatchers used to it."

The technology is not to the point yet where dispatchers can receive video or pictures, Grey noted. That capability, once available, will be particularly useful, allowing people to relay detailed messages about automobile accidents, Grey said.

Many people today, mostly younger residents, prefer to text rather than make phone calls, according to Grey. Texting also allows the hearing impaired to use 911.

Also, the technology will allow people in situations in which they don't want to be heard, such as a child watching his parents fight, to send a text message instead.

"Text-to-911 customers must be within range of cellular towers located in Mercer County," Grey said. "If customers are outside of Mercer County or near the county borders, the message may not reach Mercer County Central Dispatch. If the caller links to a cellular tower that does not support text-to-911 service, the caller should receive an automated message indicating this with instructions to call 911 instead."

The preferred and most effective way to contact 911, however, is the phone, Grey said.  

"Texting is not always instantaneous, which is critical during a life-threatening emergency," Grey said. "It may take slightly longer to dispatch emergency service in a text-to-911 situation because of the time involved it takes someone to enter the text, the message must go over the network and the 911 dispatcher must read the text and then text back."

Dispatchers can triangulate the location of 911 callers.

"Most of the time, we will get a location that is really, really close to where you are so we can find you," Grey said.

That's not the case with texting.

"Providing location information and nature of the emergency in the 911 text message is imperative since Mercer County Central Dispatch will receive only an approximate location of the cellphone and will not be able to speak with the person sending the text," Grey said. "Text abbreviations or slang should never be used in order that the intent of the two-way dialogue is as clear as possible."

Grey also stressed the importance of not texting 911 while driving.

The 911 text service is being provided by INdigital Telecom of Fort Wayne, Indiana, free of charge to the county in exchange for hosting their router, roughly the size of a desktop computer, in the sheriff's office, Grey said.

County commissioners in October approved a resolution authorizing the agreement with INdigital.

"Some of the counties on the Ohio-Indiana border wanted to put a router in our office," Grey told commissioners last fall. "The deal was they'd put this router in our office and we'd be able to transfer things back and forth between the states."

The text-to-911 service would have cost the county nearly $2,500 in equipment and a $3,860 annual fee, Grey had said.