A free Emergency+ App was launched late last week by emergency services across Australia which can pinpoint your location to get the help you need to you faster. If you need to call for emergency assistance and you’re unaware of your exact location, the 000 call taker will ask you if you have the app on your phone and if you do to verbally read out your Latitude and Longitude GPS coordinates which are displayed in the app.
The developers say that nearly 70% of calls made to 000 now originate from mobile phones, and distressed callers often make mistakes when trying to describe their location. The app removes a lot of this guesswork and allows emergency services to respond to the location of the caller.
The app also includes information on which agency you should call to assist in a variety of situations – eg, fire, flood, road accident or domestic disturbance. As an emergency services volunteer, I still urge people if in doubt pick up the phone and dial 000 – it’s better to be safe than sorry where lives are concerned.
While the use of this app is in it’s early stages, it’s something that has the backing of all states and territories in order to improve the response times of all emergency services to emergency situations. It’s only a few megabytes, and is worth the space to install it on your phone.
The app can be downloaded for Android or iOS and has been developed by the national Triple Zero Awareness Work Group.
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