BUFFALO, N.Y. — Believe it or not, the current 911 system that Erie County uses can't accurately pinpoint a person's location if they are calling with a cell phone.
You would think in 2024 that would be a standard feature in a 911 system. Erie County, along with the vast majority of counties across the state for that matter, hasn't upgraded to next-gen 911 yet.
But that's not the fault of the county.
The New York State Department of Homeland and Emergency Services still hasn't released its guidance to the counties on how they should upgrade.
In the meantime, however, the Erie County Sheriff's Office has begun using a service that will allow its dispatchers to pinpoint the latitude and longitude of someone when they call.
The service is called RapidSOS, and ECSO has been using it for about two years.
"Essentially what that does is it notifies us through their cell phone their latitude and longitude," said Sgt. Jeremy Lehning from the Erie Co. Sheriff's Office. "Once we get their latitude and longitude, it's implemented into the rapid SOS software and it gives us a pinpoint on a screen or a map as to where they are."
Two hikers went missing on January 7 at Hunter's Creek Park just before 6 p.m. One of the hikers called 911 and was transferred to an ECSO dispatcher who was able to use RapidSOS to find their location and guide them to a location where a sheriff's deputy was waiting.
The system can also be used during severe winter events.
"Especially in a whiteout," Lehning said. " [Someone] can't tell where they are, they don't know how far off the road they are, they don't know where on the road they are.
Lehning says the system allows dispatchers to quickly deploy resources to the situation, or guide them to safety.
So for us to get resources out to them as quickly as humanly possible that rapid SOS comes into play because it gives us a very accurate latitude and longitude as to where they are.
"It's absolutely invaluable," Lehning said. "Being able to ping the cell phone, it takes it to the next level."