Long/Lat

ezra_

Can the emergency service people who answer the 112 calls take a long/lat from a caller?

I ask as when out on the bike recently, there was an accident and we were in the middle of nowhere, on an unnamed road.

the SMS that was sent didn't work, but afterward I was thinking I could have easily given the long/lat.

In the end, one of the lads cycled back to the nearest known road and met the ambulance there, but that wouldn't always be an option I guess.

So, lacking an Eircode and a clue where specifically a caller is, what do the 112 people prefer to get from callers?

Luckysasha

I know ESB made it compulsory last year for their lads to make a note of the long. /lat. coordinates of where their working i case of emergencies. So it must be a recognised way of pin pointing your location

GoProGaming

Yes.

RiderOnTheStorm

They could take it, but they have no way to pass it on to ES frontline staff. And they prob wont for a long long time. Talk to anyone involved in call-taking or dispatch , and they will tell you that sometimes the person calling 999 cant remember their own name or the address of the house they have lived at all their lives. (witnessed the last one myself). So, hard to talk them through getting a Lat/Long and delivering a (possible) 12 digit number correctly. Hell, some people dont know the eircode of their home.

ezra_

RiderOnTheStorm wrote: »

They could take it, but they have no way to pass it on to ES frontline staff. And they prob wont for a long long time. Talk to anyone involved in call-taking or dispatch , and they will tell you that sometimes the person calling 999 cant remember their own name or the address of the house they have lived at all their lives. (witnessed the last one myself). So, hard to talk them through getting a Lat/Long and delivering a (possible) 12 digit number correctly. Hell, some people dont know the eircode of their home.

Cheers - the situation here was a bit different.

There was no problem getting the lat/long (everyone had phones and some of the lads even had GPS devices on their bikes).

If someone had the thought to give the 112 guys the lat/long, could they have used that to give the ambulance the correct address? Instead, one of the lads had to cycle back to the last major road and wait there and then give directions to the drivers.

RiderOnTheStorm

AFAIK the only ES that use lat/long are the Coast Guard.

Tripp

NAS Control Can and does use lat/long when needed and if its the only way a caller can give their location

Schindlers Pissed

Ezra, yes you can. I remember being at a call once in the middle of no place with no phone signal (I had 3G as far as I remember), the text that NEOC sent me wouldn't work so I opened the compass app on my iPhone (pre tetra). I gave control my lat/long and 20 minutes later Air Corp 112 was landing on scene. I hope this answers your question.

Schindlers Pissed

ezra_ wrote: »

Cheers - the situation here was a bit different.

There was no problem getting the lat/long (everyone had phones and some of the lads even had GPS devices on their bikes).

If someone had the thought to give the 112 guys the lat/long, could they have used that to give the ambulance the correct address? Instead, one of the lads had to cycle back to the last major road and wait there and then give directions to the drivers.

Paramedics. Or Advanced Paramedics. NOT drivers. Thanks.

easygoing1982

Schindlers Pissed wrote: »

Paramedics. Or Advanced Paramedics. NOT drivers. Thanks.

Eh being a bit pedantic. I'm well aware of the attitude of "ambulance driver" within the ambulance services but generally when I'm giving directions to someone in a vehicle, I generally direct my comments to the "driver" and not the passenger.

Schindlers Pissed

easygoing1982 wrote: »

Eh being a bit pedantic. I'm well aware of the attitude of "ambulance driver" within the ambulance services but generally when I'm giving directions to someone in a vehicle, I generally direct my comments to the "driver" and not the passenger.

I'm not being pedantic at all. If you re-read the post I'm talking about, the guy cycled down to meet the ambulance and gave directions to the DRIVERS. Plural. Therefore both occupants were ambulance drivers.

easygoing1982

Schindlers Pissed wrote: »

I'm not being pedantic at all. If you re-read the post I'm talking about, the guy cycled down to meet the ambulance and gave directions to the DRIVERS. Plural. Therefore both occupants were ambulance drivers.

Oh the shame for yous 🙄. Possibly a typo since there can only be one Driver driving a vehicle. Nevertheless we better get David Menzies on the case for you.

Terrontress

It's funny, I always separate the role of paramedics when they're on the move to when they arrive. Both highly skilled tasks, but when I see someone piloting a fully laden transit the wrong way up a congested road, he's an ambulance driver, a massive skill. Once he hops out he's a paramedic, also a massive skill, both worthy of utmost respect

Peregrinus

ezra_ wrote: »

There was no problem getting the lat/long (everyone had phones and some of the lads even had GPS devices on their bikes).

If someone had the thought to give the 112 guys the lat/long, could they have used that to give the ambulance the correct address?

Well, to pick nits, there isn't necessarily a neat way to convert lat/long co-ordinates back to a street address. Schindler's Pissed experience is encouraging, but in that case the rescue vehicle was a helicopter; they don't navigate by street address, and presumably would be perfectly happy with lat/long co-ordinates (or OS grid references).

If lat/long co-ordinates are passed to terrestrial ambulance crew, my guess is that they couldn't easily convert that into a street address. But presumably they are equipped with satnav devices, and there's no reason why they couldn't plug the coordinates in and have the satnav plot a route to a point on a road nearest to the point indicated by the coordinates.

mikeecho

Peregrinus wrote: »

Well, to pick nits, there isn't necessarily a neat way to convert lat/long co-ordinates back to a street address. Schindler's Pissed experience is encouraging, but in that case the rescue vehicle was a helicopter; they don't navigate by street address, and presumably would be perfectly happy with lat/long co-ordinates (or OS grid references).

If lat/long co-ordinates are passed to terrestrial ambulance crew, my guess is that they couldn't easily convert that into a street address. But presumably they are equipped with satnav devices, and there's no reason why they couldn't plug the coordinates in and have the satnav plot a route to a point on a road nearest to the point indicated by the coordinates.

That presumption..

Schindlers Pissed

easygoing1982 wrote: »

Oh the shame for yous 🙄. Possibly a typo since there can only be one Driver driving a vehicle. Nevertheless we better get David Menzies on the case for you.

The devil is in the detail!

flazio

I'm pretty sure that regardless of what the patient refers the ambulance service employees as, their help and professionalism is no less appreciated.

drill

The NAS control can process calls using the following methods

. Postal Address
· Eircode
· Lat/Long (D M,M) (D,DDD) (DMS)
· Northing’s /Easting’s
· Map Ref: X Y
. AML if available
. Locate me 112
All used to assist the call takers with locating the caller