Geocache 911

[baerphoto]

Just had a very interesting log left at my cache. I wonder just how many lawenforcement centers are in the dark on GPS and their usefullness in an emergency.

 

View the log at http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.aspx?ID=91419

Regarding January 14, 2004 log

 

Brian

Baerphoto

[gm100guy]

I was reading your log and yes we do need to have away for them to plug in cords for finding us.

 

I live in Canada and talked to some emergency agency's and more and more are getting mapping programs in there dispatch centers.

 

Awhile ago my car broke down and I called my road side service. The call center was in the maritimes and I am in Ontario. I asked the lady on the phone if I could just give her my location from the GPS she knew what I was talking about and said in the New Year they would be getting a new map program and be able to do that and have the truck find you.

 

[+oldschool]

I am not suprised at all about the fact that law enforcement does not have a way to find where you are at based on lat/lon coordinates. Having lived in the same area for about 12 years now, I have come to know the roads around here pretty well. Unfortunatly, most of the emergency operators and emergency response organizations are not. Fact of the matter remains that organizations such as the police, emts, and fire department have no way of locating you other than the name of the road you are on.

 

With that being said, it all boils down to funding on the part of the state and local goverments. Many of them can not afford to fund a project that would implement a system that would allow them to figure out where an accident occured based on the coordinates given by an individual on the other end. Granted the software would be cheap in and of itself, it would still take months or even years for the software to be installed and for the proper people to be trained on the technology. Mix that with the fact that most people are ignorant about geocaching and coordinates or even what lat/lon means and how to use it.

 

I tend to agree with the common thought here and people are too ignorant about geocaching and coords. I will say though, that I am thankful that the injured parties that were mentioned in the log, were okay after the fact. . I will also say that I belive that more and more people are becoming aware of what we do and are embrassing it with open arms. All it takes is word of mouth and a proper way of explaining it to people who know nothing about it. If we all took the time to explain it to five other people or even one other person, maybe local emergency organizations will start to see its effectiveness and do what it takes to implement the technology where they work.

 

Oldschool

[magellan315]

I read these postsand think many of the agencies involved are missing an oppurtunity. There are any number of websites that will allow you to plug in GPS coordinates and it will provde you with a street map. How tough would it be to make sure that 911 has internet access and then just go to the website, enter the coordinates, then dispatch the appropriate people to the location.

[+bennet]

I had such an experience with 911 and latitude/longitude. A couple of years ago, I was on one of my normal bicycle rides on the city trails in Fort Worth. Sun was going down and I came up to a man who was laid out across the trail. He had crashed his mountain bike, transitioning from the hard-pack to the paved surface. He was conscious, but hurt bad, and could not even move inches without a lot of pain. It looked like he had a dislocated hip, and perhaps broken bones in the ankle and foot.

 

I called 911 on my cell phone for an ambulance. There was not an easy way to describe the location (the trails here go for miles), and I tried to give the operator latitude and longitude coordinates from my GPSr. She couldn’t use them at all. So we directed the ambulance to a trailhead a mile or two away, and sent a cyclist to the trailhead to meet the ambulance and guide them to the spot.

[+Jamie Z]

Wow, amazing stories.

 

I don't have much to add, other than about a year ago, I took a ride in a police car (it was for a good reason) and commented on the GPS the officer had mounted in the windshield. I told him I carry a GPS and given a situation as described in the other stories, I'd be able to relay coordinates. He replied that he wouldn't be able to do that because he didn't know how to use it.

 

Amazing technology we have here. It should be utilized.

 

Jamie

[+J&L Lee]

After reading your Geocache 911 stories I have to tell you that some of us the in the EMS world do know how work a GPS. We have laptops in our patrols (finally) and mapping programs hooked up to a GPS (some our personal).

In our little neck of the world with no real addresses except in our small towns, it's sometimes the only way to find and remember the various trouble spots. As the city folk move into our county we find they do not know the names given over the years to the various dirtroad intersections.

During mountain EMS and S&R details the S&S members and the county deputies are able to call in Life Flights and our local ambulances (most of our ambulance drivers know the county by heart).

I'm saying that for a small, poor county with an even smaller pocket book, thus having trouble keeping up with the high tec world, we have grabbed hold of the GPS world. Most of the credit is do to two deputies, Barry "Bluejohn" & Blain.

I know of deputies that have gone Caching in the late hours of the morning, flashlights in hand just for the practice, never recording their find because their not into Geocaching.

It's been a long dusty trail and we're still learning. J of the J&L LEE team.

[+Ramness]

I am a police dispatcher. Our map in our dispatching software has the option to display lat/long but I have been sitting her messing with it and I cannot find a way to enter a set of cords to get a location. Thats kinda dumb!

[+T-storm]

I have a similar story on one of my cache listings... it was getting dark and the party in question was in a hurry to get back to their car. They had no waypoint, but saw a bright light in the distance and decided that it was at the location they were parked. They began bushwhacking toward it... unfortunately it was nearly 180 degrees off of their car's location. They whacked themselves through a marsh, back up onto solid land, and came up against a water barrier separating them from the light they'd been headed toward. Complete dark now, and a chilly December evening. They wound up calling 911 and were lost 3 or 4 more hours before folks found them with the help of dogs and equestrian patrols. At first no one could figure out the coords, then they were stumped by the island reference they got from the map location... which may have been true several years past when the lake was higher, but no longer!

[+DocW]

To add some experience from other countries:

In Germany, near cologne in a remote landscape I duringe a cache hunt I found and reported a forest fire (see here) to the local fire men. luckily I knew where I was, because a very scenic ruine is close by. This ruine was familiar to the dispatcher, so he knew whom to alarm and to send to.

Later I read the experiences from a fellow cacher: He is often going to remote areas by mountain bike, so he asked police and rescue teams on their ability on coordinates. He got the following feedback: The police in our state (Northrine Westphalia) are usinge a system which is based on cartesian Gauss-Krueger Koordinates, a local German. You can also enter data in Lat/Long-data, it seems, that they are based on WGS84.

Rescue services like fire patrol and ambulances are using a system which is based on UTM. Non of them are really being used to the systems.

So better hope not to need both of them, an ambulance and the police, or get really used to fast translation on different map datums!

[GeoStars]

At one of the EMS services I work for, we have a GPS in one of the ambulances. Dispatch for that service is also upgrading their computer system so they will be able to either get coordinates based on an address or get a location based on GPS coordinates. The other service I work for already has this system. I think this will become very common now that many new cars are coming out GPS systems on board.

[+quills]

this sort of applies. our locall 911 center recently upgraded their equipment for a similar situation. apperently someone called 911 on a cell phone while they were having a heart attack. the connection was lost and they didn't find this person until 5 hours later, unfortunately by that time it was too late. with the new system the accuraccy is almost as good as calling from a landline. they say it's accurate to 100-150 meters the only catch is not all ceel carriers are set up to cooperate with this new service.

[+Brian - Team A.I.]

this sort of applies. our locall 911 center recently upgraded their equipment for a similar situation. apperently someone called 911 on a cell phone while they were having a heart attack. the connection was lost and they didn't find this person until 5 hours later, unfortunately by that time it was too late. with the new system the accuraccy is almost as good as calling from a landline. they say it's accurate to 100-150 meters the only catch is not all ceel carriers are set up to cooperate with this new service.

You're referring to e911. The sad thing is, we've all been paying taxes for years for this service, which was supposed to be in place long ago and still isn't. Look on your cell bill for as long as you have them and you'll see that service charge. As a Highway Patrol Dispatcher, it would be invaluable to have e911 coverage for some of our wrecks/incidents, specifically remote area ones. The CAD system we're finally upgrading to will have lat/long ability, but it will be useless unless the other 38 people in this center know how to use GPS at all. It was suggested by someone that I teach a class on GPS technology, which I may do.

[+boomhwr653]

Having worked in both law enforcement and EMS, in both rural and suburban areas. In my experience, the GPS would have been most usable in rural areas. Cities expand and add streets faster than mapping software can keep up. I am currently working in a department that covers mostly mountain areas, 3 highways and hundreds of miles of forest roads. We are just updating to basic e-911. As with many small departments, the budget does not allow for new technology. Hence, the ones who need it the most are the last to get it.