Made a 999 call on VoIP (Blueface)

causal

Last Monday I had cause to dial the emergency services to request an ambulance. You can find out why here.
Anyway, no problem at all with the 999 call at all in terms of establishing the connection, time to connect, call quality, etc.
I didn't try 112, I'm afraid 999 is burned in my psyche!


causal

snappieT

Good to know. Best of luck with the new baby. Congrats.

fatherdougalmag

Did you need to tell them where you lived? My understanding is that a 999 call gets routed to the nearest emergency centre but because of the nature of the VoIP Dublin number assignment you could be calling from anywhere within Dublin.

antoinolachtnai

Well, in Ireland, 999 already has to deal with calls from mobiles which it can't determine a location for. I had to call 999 on the mobile once and they asked where I was so they could put me on to the right Gardai.

There aren't 'emergency centres' as such (at least not that I know of), and routing you to the nearest one wouldn't really help that much. What seems to happen is that the operator asks your name and address if appropriate and puts you on to the appropriate service in your area.

causal

fatherdougalmag wrote:

Did you need to tell them where you lived? My understanding is that a 999 call gets routed to the nearest emergency centre but because of the nature of the VoIP Dublin number assignment you could be calling from anywhere within Dublin.

They always ask for your location. Incidentally they got it slightly wrong despite being told at least 10 times - yes I tend to repeat important things.

About 10 years ago I worked as a student engineer on the emergency services Computer Aided Mobilisation Project (Dublin Corporation) which at the time was intended to be the hub of all emergency services (trialling with Dublin Fire Brigade) for the country (trialling with Dublin), based in Tara St, Dublin. There were GIS maps being made for the whole country, so that fire tenders, EMTs etc. would be given detailed info on the fly with directions - a bit like GPS. As I understand it all emergency calls are routed to Tara St and from there to the appropriate local area service.

They always check your location, a landline number could be forwarded etc. I've dialled 999 about 10 times over the years (RTAs, sporting accidents, criminal activity, etc.) and they always ask where are you and what service do you need. I just start with "Hi, I'm in Dublin, I need an Ambulance/Garda/Fire tender/mountain rescue/lifeboat/etc" - delete as appropriate

causal

Cabaal

causal wrote:

Last Monday I had cause to dial the emergency services to request an ambulance. You can find out why here.

Congrats man,
I was thinking I did'ent see you posting for awhile, I guess this is the reason why