Starting Thursday at 6 a.m., Waterloo Region and Guelph residents with speech or hearing impairments will have a new way to notify authorities of active emergencies.
A new service called Text with 9-1-1, or T9-1-1, will allow them to text details of the situation to emergency dispatchers.
Without T9-1-1, people with those impairments are only able to contact authorities via teletype machines at their homes, or by getting someone else to make the call for them.
“They’re really land-locked to their home,” Waterloo Regional Police Insp. Mark Bullock tells CTV News.
“There is no mobile solution, until now. It’s a very limiting factor.”
Some American jurisdictions have introduced similar systems, through which the entire interaction with dispatchers takes place via text message.
T9-1-1 doesn’t work that way – 911 must still be called, and the line kept open while messages are sent back and forth.
Anyone wanting to use T9-1-1 must first register for the service with their phone service provider.
T9-1-1, which Bullock says took five years to implement, will be available in both English and French.
