by Billymaca » Sun Feb 06, 2011 9:59 am
Hello again Eddie devlin, I don’t think I explained a couple of points very well the first time so I have amended them.
All that has been discussed so far is true, but what has not been mentioned so far is that when you make an emergency call on a mobile phone with poor or no reception, the emergency call centre has to triangulate the signal from your phone to locate your approximate location, this is fine you may think, the problem with that is that it only gives them an approximate area, which could be a vast area and that will take time and a lot of resources to carry out an effective search. The nature of an emergency call means someone needs help fast (probably medical if you are out on a hill).
Another problem that could exist is that if the person that made the call is on their own, they may not be aware that triangulation of their call has happened, they may then walk out of the triangulated area in an attempt to gain a phone signal, now the search is in the wrong area.
In case of emergency (ICE) [/color]is only information in your contacts list on your phone that enables first responders, such as paramedics, fire fighters, and police officers, once they have reached you, to obtain the information required to identify you, contact numbers of next of kin and your important medical information .
As slogger mentioned check out the SPOT or the new SPOT CONNECT ( which is about to be released), This gadget will send a distress message via satellite every 5 minutes to the GEOS Response Centre giving your exact position, If help is required, even at night or in a heavily forested/ wooded area the search and rescue helicopter crews can drop the Paramedic on your lap, (they are that good !), The appropriate response can be despatched directly to you by the safest and shortest route, thus saving valuable time and resources. If the person is on their own as was mentioned above and on the move then the emergency response is updated automatically of the new position every 5 minutes.
This is a point of view from the other end of the spectrum as a Paramedic who has spent time on the hills searching for someone in a triangulated area. I myself have a SPOT 2 for when I go on walkabout in the hills. The cost of the device and the subscription to some may seem hefty, but what price would you put on your life ?, it’s the same argument with life jackets.