FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS VIDEO TRANSCRIPT
How much does it cost to call 111?
Carol Davis (Ambulance): If anyone needs to call the emergency services it’s absolutely free to call 111. It costs nothing from your cellphone, nothing from your landline.
How do you find an address?
Graham Hargreaves (Fire Service): We’ve got a few methods of how we find people. The main one is through caller line identification. Essentially it uses the bill payer details from landlines in order to find the address. However, that doesn’t work on cellphones so occasionally we have to ask more questions as to finding exactly where you are in the country. This can sometimes be asking cross streets, which are streets that are nearby that run off that particular street that we are asking about. If you don’t know those we can go to other questions, such as asking (about) certain buildings, certain landmarks – things that are generally very specific to that part of New Zealand, so we we can confirm that you are exactly where you’re calling from and then direct the appropriate resources to you.
Why do you ask so many questions?
Inspector Paul Jermy (Police): You are asked a number of questions primarily for your own safety and also to assist the staff that are coming to assist you. Some of our best results are obtained when the caller works with us to keep the information coming.
How can you answer every call in time?
Sarah Lewis (Ambulance): If we have a busy period we can’t always get to all the 111 calls that come in. For example, in a road accident. The calls are automatically transferred to one of the other centres in this event and they will take the 111 call but it will still appear on our dispatcher’s computers and the ambulance can be dispatched without any delay.
How do you get info from a panicked caller?
Carlos Dempsey (Fire Service): We get some calls from very upset people; it’s obviously a very stressful time for them. We use our training to calm them down. We need to be assertive and ask appropriate questions so that we can come and help them as soon as possible.
What happens if there is a power cut?
Sarah: In the event of a power cut the Emergency Communications Centre here has something, big batteries if you like, called ‘uninterrupted power supply’, and they hold the power while the generator kicks in. And that’s all automatic. The generator will then supply enough electricity to supply the Communications Centre here and link us with other centres. And that will go on as long as we continue to put diesel in the generator.
[End]
