Technology to help 911 dispatchers pinpoint location

Getting first responders to you faster during an emergency by tracking your location when you call 911 is the goal of a new technology called Pure Wireless.

Verizon in Collier County will use it.

A dispatcher’s first question is, “What is your emergency?”

The next is, “Where are you?”

New technology allows first responders to know your location down to exactly where you’re standing.

“Now, it’s not just, you know, what floor but or what, where it is, horizontally and vertically, so to speak, but where it is, how high up the incident is,” said Bob Finney, of the Collier County Sheriff’s Office.

Before Pure Wireless’s new program, dispatchers saw where you were in 2D. Now, with the ability to see in 3D, law enforcement sees what floor you are on, what corner of the room you’re in, or where your nearest exit is.

The Collier County Sheriff’s Office has partnered with Pure Wireless to be the first to use this pilot program. Working with more than just the sheriff’s office, their dispatch teams also cover local fire agencies.

In a fire, they can see where your closest shutoff valve or fire extinguisher is. In a medical emergency, they can see where the nearest AED is.

“Whether it be older or younger, whatever. Somebody’s under a lot of stress,” said Eliiot Singer, Pure Wireless CEO. “They’re in the hallway of a building. Perhaps a visitor going to see somebody, and they’ve got disorientated. They’ve got no idea where they are. They dial 911 on their phone, and it comes up to the operator. They know where they are, and now they can pinpoint them to the floor where they are.”

In an emergency, seconds are priceless.

This program makes every second count.