Public Safety Officials Encourage Residents to Sign Up for the Free Service That Provides Emergency Responders with More Information to Save Time and Save Lives
NEW PROVIDENCE, N.J., Dec. 2, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- Public Safety officials at the new Mountain Valley Emergency Communications Center announced today that they are the first in New Jersey to implement Smart911, the national public safety service to enhance 9-1-1 emergency services. Mountain Valley Emergency Communications Center provides 9-1-1 dispatch services for the City of Summit, Borough of New Providence and Township of Millburn.
"We are extremely proud to be the first in the state to offer this lifesaving service to our citizens," said Scott Ruf, executive director of Mountain Valley Emergency Communications Center. "By allowing our citizens to provide vital details to our response teams prior to an emergency, we have the ability to positively enhance our response times and ultimately, the outcome the situation."
Smart911 allows citizens to create a Safety Profile at www.smart911.com for their household that includes any information they want 9-1-1 and response teams to have in the event of an emergency. When a citizen makes an emergency call, their Safety Profile is automatically displayed to the 9-1-1 call taker, allowing them to send the right response teams to the right location with the right information. Responders can be aware of many details they would not have known previously, and now fire crews can arrive at a house fire knowing how many people live in the home and the location of bedrooms, EMS can be advised of allergies or specific medical conditions and police can have the photo of a missing child in seconds rather than minutes or hours.
"Smart911 is a great step forward in emergency response," said chief Robert Weck, Summit Police Department. "When you dial 9-1-1, you are not having your best day, and even the simplest of details can be difficult to communicate in a time of panic. Now we can approach the scene of an emergency more safely, as well as provide faster and more precise response."
With Smart911, citizens can link both home and work addresses to mobile phones, which can be passed on to responders in the field for more a detailed, rapid response. Additional information including pets in the home, vehicle details in the event of an accident and even emergency contacts can all be included in a Safety Profile. All information is optional and the citizen has the ability to choose what details they would like to include.
"Having the information that is available through a Safety Profile can greatly affect the way we respond to an emergency," said chief J. Michael Roberts, Millburn Fire Department. "If we know exactly where we are going and who we are looking for in a house fire or at the scene of a vehicle accident, those details can help us assess and then respond to those citizens more efficiently."
Smart911 is currently available in 40 states and more than 1,500 municipalities. It has been credited with positively impacting emergency situations and saving lives across the U.S., including a missing child case in Arkansas, a heart attack victim in Tennessee and a man trapped in a house fire in Michigan. As a national service, anytime a person with a Smart911 profile dials 9-1-1 in any location in the US that support Smart911, their profile will appear to dispatchers allowing for more information to be available at the time of an emergency.
Citizens are encouraged to create their Safety Profile with Smart911 today to have their information immediately available to 9-1-1. Smart911 is private and secure, is exclusively used for emergency responses, and only made available to the 9-1-1 system in the event of an emergency call.
Media Contact:
Amy Krigman
Public Relations for Smart911
781-418-2449
[email protected]
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SOURCE Smart911
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