NewsWest 9
ODESSA- No one wants to make a 911 call but if you need to, you expect the person on the other end to find you and get to you quickly. That may not happen if you make the emergency call from a cell phone or internet based broadband phone.
"When you call on a land line it's going to give us your address, who the phone is assigned to," Richard Frederick, system administrator for the Public Safety Communications for the City of Odessa said, but he also says with a cell phone it takes longer to get a location and sometimes it isn't enough information.
"We use several towers to pin point your location and that is only accurate within a hundred meters," Frederick said, but he adds if you are in an apartment complex it won't give the dispatcher the unit number or floor.
Frederick says if you are coherent enough to tell the dispatcher where you are exactly you or your loved one won't lose time in the exchange, but there are delays if you can't describe an exact street location.
"It can be very delayed, because now we've got to hunt for them," Frederick said, who says sometimes door to door.
