Gps In Emergency Situation?

[+kbootb]

Has anyone actually had cause or know definitavely (?sp) of someone who has given GPS co-ords on a 999 call.

 

Questions that come to mind, would the operator recognise them?

 

What format e.g. deg min.dec min or deg min sec would they use? Also would the map datum be significant?

 

Part of the reason I ask this is that in the holidays we drove around France and Italy. Each campsite we pre-booked sent us a leaflet with a GPS co-ordinate as part of the details. SOunds brilliant. They were in deg min sec, but not a problem.

 

However, none of the co-ordinates were better than 4 miles accurate, and the worst was 20 miles out.

 

Tried fiddling around with the datum but couldn't really make much difference. I thought that perhaps the co-ords had been taken in deg min.decimal minutes and perhaps the proofreader or who typed them up had thought 'coords are in deg min sec' and just stuck in separaters without actual doing any maths, but this didn't seem to work either.

 

So... if this were an emergency situation the GPS co-ords would have bee useless.

 

However, caching co-ords from the geocaching.com website were spot on.

[+Haggis Hunter]

Being an avid sailor, I know that our emergency services, in particular the Coastguard would recognise a set of co-ords. When on dry land I believe that it may make it easier if you gave British grid as your location, they would have no problem with this.

 

With this said I think the best person to possibly answer your question would be Highland Nick, as he has experience in this type of thing.

[+Mad H@ter]

Some months back whilst out caching we came across a pile of boxes full of royal mail paperwork, packages etc. The emergency services operator seemed very grateful of the GPSr co-ords which we gave in OSGB.

[+Birders]

The Coastguard might be switched on but as for the others, I don't think you could rely on them too much. In a professional capacity I once had urgent need to get an ambulance to Heathrow Airport. My 999 call was put through the ambulance control which, at the time, was at Waterloo. The operator asked "where's that?". When I got back on my chair I asked what sort of information he wanted and he said "Street names". Maybe if I'd given him a WGS84 style reference it might have worked!

[+harrogate hunters]

Whilst placing one of my caches around Harrogate in a forest I came accross a forest fire, I phones the fire brigade and gave them a Lat/Long reading.....

 

They took it along with my mobile number. 10 minutes later I had a phone call from the engine who were on the way. Apparantly head office have facilities and they use this to send out the engines, but individual engines do not, so they phoned me and I had to walk to the nearest road to meet them !

 

Well it nearly worked. Best laugh was watching the fireman taking a portable pump 1/2 mile through dence woodland.

 

They never did ask why I was there. I hope they did not think I had started it !

[+BugznElm'r]

I was in a car accident a couple of weeks back. I was shunted off the carriageway, rolled down an embankment into fairly dense woodland that seemed to have closed up behind me in the dark. I was left trapped inside the upsidedown vehicle and there was a strong smell of petrol...! You might expect that in such a circumstance on a busy motorway people would immediately come rushing down to help but anyone who saw the accident must have just driven on by...

 

Luckily I eventually found my phone and called 999 but I had no idea where I was apart from the last junction. My iPAQ was connected to my bluetooth GPS and so I expected to be able to see my location but unfortunately the PDA had gone off (either because it was running off the car battery or I suppose the jolt from the impact may have affected it). Luckily it swtiched on again but my last position had been lost. My bluetooth GPSr wasn't able to get a signal (because of the trees and being inside an upsidedown vehicle, I suppose) and TomTom doesn't keep a log either...

 

Luckily the firemen found me before too long just by searching along the road and I'm OK generally although battered and bruised but very happy to be alive! But it's really made me wonder about the technology, both in an emergency and after the fact in sorting out the legal and insurance issues. How many times have I thought how useful it would be to have the GPS and its track log and bread crumb trail and all the useful info of speeds and direction? But I didn't have my hand held GPS and the bluetooth one has no interface or memory...

 

In answer to your question, I really don't know if they could have used a grid reference if I'd been able to give them one. But I'd never realized before that there are stretches of 'wilderness' alongside motorways that left me feeling more lost than I've ever felt out on any moorland or mountain range either in the UK or abroad!

 

Take Care!

 

Kathie (Mrs Bugz)

[+Sue and Bernie]

When we leave home for pastures new, Sue always grabs the mobile and I grab the Vista! We do the same when we go on holiday or anywhere new.

 

We have got used to driving afield with the bikes strapped to the car then dumping the car somewhere convenient and cycling on to a cache or two. Hours later, we return to the car and travel home. While we always know roughly where we dumped it, we often return cross-county using tracks and footpaths. Sometimes we have to spiral our way back due to the route being closed or non-existant but we have always trusted the Vista to get us right back to the spot.

 

...and of course we now have two (JIC).

[+Billy Twigger]

Thankfully, and unlike BugznElm'r, my only need to report my location arises when Mummy Twigger calls me on my mobile and asks "Where are you?"

When I say, "I'm at N58 36.659 W3 20.349" I suspect that the silence sounds exactly like the response I would get from Mr PC Badger.

 

I used to be very helpful. For example,

"Where are you?"

"I'm on the A67, about 7 miles from Barnard Castle"

"Yes, -but where's that?"

" N54 33.055 W1 45.089"

"Your tea's cold!"

 

I think you really need to speak to Neafearjustbeer to find the value of knowing where you are, -or where he is!

[+Teasel]

Coast guards will be happy with lat/long coordinates. They have to be because OS grid references are not used offshore. But everyone else in the UK (except geocachers!) uses OS grid references. So if you're calling out mountain rescue, these are by far your best bet. (Though obviously, anything is better than nothing!)

 

There are tales of people using mobile phones to call out mountain rescue having their calls diverted to a distant 999 call centre and being told "I'm sorry we don't do mountain rescue because we don't have any mountains here"! And anything you tell the operator has maybe 4 or 5 hops of chinese whispers before it gets to the person who'll be coming to get you. Against that backdrop, what are the chances of lat/long/datum/format all being correctly transferred? Better to rattle off an unambiguous string of 2 letters and 8 numbers. When you're bouncing around in a landrover with sirens wailing, it's hard enough to stick your thumb on a map given a grid reference. Now try it with WGS coordinates when you realise your GPS is locked away in the back of the vehicle...

[+Pharisee]

When I'm wandering up the Hills, Dales and Mountains of our beautiful country, I'm more often than not on my own. If I'm attempting a particularly rugged (by my standards, NOT Highland Nick's ) clamber I always text my position (as an OS grid ref) every half hour or so to my sister along with the direction that I'm heading as a compass bearing. That way, if anything did happen to me, hopefully they'd know roughly where to look for my body

 

Unless of course, it were to involve the R.A.C. My ol' Astra burst an artery (well... radiator hose actually) and dumped all it's coolant on the black-top. The girl at the call centre wasn't in the least interested in my location quoted in anything more technical than the road name (it was a country lane, of course) and the distance from the nearest landmark, corner or road junction. Their patrol vehicles don't have sat-nav

[+Naefearjustbeer]

 

I think you really need to speak to Neafearjustbeer to find the value of knowing where you are, -or where he is!

The police were not interested in helping me at all. I did offer them my OS grid reference but they just passed me on to the AA. The AA call person didnt even know what a grid reference was, She wanted a road number or nearest junctionn(I did not have a pda at the time so I couldnt refer to the map), I ended up asking her to contact an Inverness based garage that had 4x4s. Then macrea and dick called me back and the man found me using local knowledge.

[+Roving Rangies]

Hi

On Land OSGB would be fine. The Police and Fire understand these just fine. I assume the Ambo service would as well

[+The Wombles]

In a GPS article in the latest T3 magazine (November), there are two quoted examples of Long/Lat in emergency situations. Both of these were offshore, were understood by the coastguards and led to a faster recovery.

 

Incidentally, the same article carries a side panel on geocaching (page 55) with a few paragraphs by Jeremy Irish. It's positive although short.

[+Teuchters]

The comments made so far are all just about OK.

At sea, use Lat/long for the coastguard.

On land, if you want mountain rescue, use OSGB

Ask for mountain rescue NOT ambulance - even if there are injuries. I would always ask for ambulance service last (or not at all) after mountain rescue then police. A mountain rescue call goes through to the police automatically. The police will make sure that the correct resource is tasked to the incident.

Insist that the operator repeats your 10 fig reference, and make sure that you include the two tile reference letters, otherwise your location repeats every 100km. Ensure the operator records that it is a 10 fig reference. Sometimes numbers get chopped off when they are passed on....

If you can truncate your 10 fig ref to a standard 6 fig ref, then fine - police men understand that better, but make sure YOU cut off the right digits and not just the last four!!!!

Since your mobile call can get diverted hundreds of miles away (though I've not heard that any go to India just yet), also spell out names of mountains and the nearest road / carpark that you left from.

Best of all, is to find out the number of the local 24 hour police station that is in your area if you are in the hills. Their local knowledge is invaluable rather than a call centre operator when responding to an emergency.

Text messages can sometimes get through much better than voice calls if your mobile batteries are getting low. This is useful if you are stuck somewhere for a while and if the police have already transferred your call through to the civilian mountain rescue controller. Switching your phone on for 5 minutes every half hour can conserve battery life whilst you are waiting!

It's also worth while remembering (if you are near a large crag for instance) that GPS signals can sometimes bounce off rocks giving a longer send time and so an incorrect position. Always check that your GPS location you are sending matches (approximately) your OS map position - you are carrying one aren't you? I can vividly remember a GPS position being sent from a casualty position during a callout that was about 2 km away in the middle of a loch!! This wasn't much use for the rescue helicopter that was on its way!

Edited September 19, 2004 by HighlandNick

[+ToolkiT]

 

I think you really need to speak to Neafearjustbeer to find the value of knowing where you are, -or where he is!

The police were not interested in helping me at all. I did offer them my OS grid reference but they just passed me on to the AA. The AA call person didnt even know what a grid reference was, She wanted a road number or nearest junctionn(I did not have a pda at the time so I couldnt refer to the map), I ended up asking her to contact an Inverness based garage that had 4x4s. Then macrea and dick called me back and the man found me using local knowledge.

Question: did you try deflating your tires?

You'll be amazed how much traction that generates... Got stuck on the beach in Australia once. Even though I knew about dropping the tire pressure I was stubborn enough to think it wouldnt make that much of a difference, boy was I wrong! I deflated the tire quite a bit and then took off like there was no sand at all!

One lesson I'll never forget..

[+Lance Ambu]

Even more off topic

 

Ray Mears and his survival programme tells a cautionary tale of a couple stuck in an australian desert (or is it dessert?) who didn't deflate the tyres enough and tried to walk out without sufficient water and had left their name and route details at a pub rather than with police or responsible relative.

 

In this example the police found the jeep, deflated the tyres and drove it out, no problem. The moral was - simple when you know how. IIRC on this occassion it cost at least one life.

 

PS

Most ambulance service software is not set up to use lat long as a primary input for location, it prefers street/road name, postcodes etc The GIS can use vehicle location data from a satellite system and link from a cursor on a map to a geocoded location - it really depends on how the user screen is setup and for most 999 calls lat/long are not used. In my neck of the woods we would defer to our maritime colleagues who also co-ordinate air assets for mountain rescue.

Edited September 21, 2004 by Lance Ambu

[+sTeamTraen]

While looking for a virtual cache in Toronto this summer, I asked an ambulance crew (who were on their break) for directions (muggles can't break virtuals ). One of them had heard of Geocaching. They showed me the GPS system in the ambulance - basically a big-screen version of what you get in a new car these days. They were able to punch in lat/long and say "Goto". At least, one of them was, the other two didn't know how to work the software , but the technology was there.

[+NickandAliandEliza]

 

I think you really need to speak to Neafearjustbeer to find the value of knowing where you are, -or where he is!

The police were not interested in helping me at all. I did offer them my OS grid reference but they just passed me on to the AA.

I'm sure you didn't really call the police anyway rather than a tow truck. After all if you had problems with your plumbing you'd call a plumber or if your garden needed doing you'd call a gardener.

 

Rather than not being interested in helping, they directed you to something where the resources were more appropriate to your need............(if this wasn't explained at the time and you felt that they weren't interested, then thats a fault with the person you spoke to.)

 

Anyway, in London GPS enabled stuff is just being put into all the cars.........not sure if I will be able to program it with the nearest 50 caches though! At the moment if you phoned the Met and gave a set of co-ords the likelihood is that the person on the other end of the phone wouldn't know what you're talking about. But, without doubt they would be able to find someone who did.

[+The Forester]

I have a question for HighlandNick:

 

Which PMR channel do the Highland MRT people use/monitor?

 

I'd like to make a note of it, just in case.

 

Cheers, The Forester

[+sTeamTraen]

I'm sure you didn't really call the police anyway rather than a tow truck. After all if you had problems with your plumbing you'd call a plumber or if your garden needed doing you'd call a gardener.

Well, you'd like to think so, but apparently not everyone thinks that way.

[+Teuchters]

I have a question for HighlandNick:

 

Which PMR channel do the Highland MRT people use/monitor?

 

I'd like to make a note of it, just in case.

Good question - how long have you got??

Mountain Rescue is shortly to move to a new set of frequencies. Up to now, we used "single channel working" but this was becoming untenable. I was asked to investigate how to progress radio comms, especially in the light of major incident responses (Lockerbie, Kegworth, Marchioness)

The first thing I did was to ask all the emergency search and rescue service providers, who would wish to speak to whom. The answer was everybody to everybody else!. This includes Police, Air Ambulance, RAF /RN helicopters, Coastguard, LifeBoats, lowland and mountain rescue.....

Anyway, for a number of years, I chaired a Home Office / Scottish Exec. communications grouping of all these interests, and we now have a national "bandplan" for all these organisations. Scottish MR is, as we speak, equipping its 58 rescue vehicles with new radios and will, next month, issue new handportable radios to its 800 volunteers, funded jointly by Scottish Executive and our own charitable funds - a sum nearing 3/4 million pounds.

But to return to your question:

The channel isn't a PMR channel and there are a large number of them! Teams have a "default" channel - these are shared out right across the UK from SW England to N Scotland on a "non interference" basis. The channels are International Marine Band (IMM) channels that are not used inland in the UK plus some Home Office / Scot. Exec channels for local usage. There are also some Emergency use only channels which all the Search and Rescue (SAR) bodies must listen on - similar to Ch 16 at sea, plus a dedicated Ground to Air Channel for helicopter (Air Amb + military ops) use only. Along with team private channels, this amounts to a large number!

And which one could YOU use? Well, as IMM channels governed by strict OFCOM regulations, members of the general public are not permitted to utilise them at all - similar to police channels and other emergency service users. In any case, since teams are voluntary and do not listen out full time on the channels, the chances are nobody would hear you anyway! Best to make the 999 call in a true emergency from your mobile using your GPS as detailed above.

 

I could tell you about the 999 call to MR to ask for new torch batteries to be brought half way up the mountain, or the one where we had to pick up the same guy two consecutive days, or the dog that ran off up the mountain followed by its owners who then got lost.....

Nick&Ali (see above also) are sure to have some good stories too!!

[JackiePenn]

Unless of course, it were to involve the R.A.C. My ol' Astra burst an artery (well... radiator hose actually) and dumped all it's coolant on the black-top. The girl at the call centre wasn't in the least interested in my location quoted in anything more technical than the road name (it was a country lane, of course) and the distance from the nearest landmark, corner or road junction. Their patrol vehicles don't have sat-nav

Had the same experience here with the R.A.C call centre. Had to give a street name then find a house number nearby, I tried to give a co-ord but they refused the offer. Country lanes in the middle of nowhere at night and raining is where I need breakdown assistance.

 

When the patrol vehicle was slowly coming up the countrylane I could hear the distance of my postion being decremeted by the voice of the SAT-NAV system mounted on the dash! So it did have sat-nav issued but use something like post-code destinations probably due to ease of use and training.

 

If in the middle of nowhere I would hope speaking to a senior at the call centre and pushing that fact the only location you can give is a co-ord they would be able to handle it.

[+yorkstan]

I am glad to see that the UK emergency services are starting to get their act together regarding radio communication. There was recently a Radio 4 programme about 9/11, and the fact that none of the services in New York could communicate with each other. Amateur radio enthusiasts stepped into the breach and spent days working with each service and joining everyone up.

[+Beds Clangers]

Working in the mobile phone industry get sent to some pretty out of the way places. Know of a case where urgent 999 assistance, ambulance, was required at a remote site. Got put through to controller. Use GPS to locate some of these sites

 

Tried to give OS Grid, didn't understand that.

 

Lat/Lon, no joy

 

After that it went something like this!

 

What street are you on? Errhh, the liitle mountain track that runs through the forest to the top of Beacon Hill?

 

Do you know the postcode, No.

 

Getting no where, who owns the site?

 

You do!! What do mean we do?!

 

It is an "ambulance" authority site!! Oh!

 

Whats it called? Beacon Hill (Not real name)

 

Do you have the postcode? **!!?*!, No

 

We picked the keys up from the "ambulance" authority building this morning!!

 

Which building? The one in Breacon.

 

Thats where I am!!

 

Well go down stairs and ask your reception where Beacon Hill is!!

 

Short wait.

 

You are AB12 3DC, ambulance is on its way and it arrived quite quickly.

 

The next time we went to that site the keys had a big label on the stating, guess what.

 

NO, not the Post Code.

 

The OS Grid Reference!! *!?!!*

[+sTeamTraen]

Do you know the postcode, No.

Typical system design done by 23 year olds: "Hmmm, when would I phone an ambulance ? When my mum has a heart attack. I'll know my post code." No chance that anyone might need an ambulance and not know where they are, or be disoriented, or...

 

Nick (who is a little over 23, but can remember when he was)

[bloke1987]

General rule of thumb:

when you need a mechanic your on a road, then use road directions and they will find you

ambulances etc should have the systems to find a gps co-ords but generally dont know how. yet again good ole fashioned locations work well.

Mountain rescue will probably prefere a grid ref, altho they might cope with gps

Coastguard can definitly take GPS and will use it to find you!

but there is one main moral to this tale - pack safely and with enough kit to get you out of most situations (car problems excluded - how many people are trained mechanics). Hiking even a fairly gentle route of the brecon beacons in a team of 4 (between 15-17 years old) we had:

1 emergency rope

2 emergency shelters

whistles, compasses etc etc

survival blankets

emergency rations

 

And all this on mounatins where the mountain rescue are always buzzing over the top and you meet people at the top in high heels on their mobile with a 3 year old in tow!