Meeting addresses wireless calls to 911 centers

Officials representing answering points in the county met to learn about planning for the service.
By ED RUNYAN
VINDICATOR TRUMBULL STAFF
WARREN -- A sense of dread fell over a dispatcher with the Warren post of the Ohio State Highway Patrol a few months ago, as he listened to a woman cry and scream in her home.
He was powerless to help the woman even though someone else in the Warren Township house had called 911. After about 15 minutes of listening, the dispatcher heard a gun blast and the woman was dead of a self-inflicted wound.
The reason the officer couldn't help was because the call was made from a wirelessular phone. Apparently sometime after the call was made, the phone fell into a couch, where the sound of the woman's despair was transmitted to the OSHP office.
In the future, officers hope they will be able to locate individuals in such situations before it is too late, said Joseph Dragovich, commander of the patrol's Warren post.
On Thursday, he and about 15 officials from other emergency call centers met with Nancy C. Serafino of Sprint to learn about the laws and technology that will eventually improve the ability to trace such wireless phone calls.
Dragovich said the shooting isn't the only tragedy to have occurred in Trumbull County in recent years involving a wireless phone. One other time, such a call about a fire in Weathersfield Township caused responders to go to the wrong location, increasing the amount of damage to the house.
The highway patrol is where 911 wireless phone calls in Trumbull County go at this time, Serafino said. In counties where improvements have been made, those calls can be routed to whatever emergency call center officials desire.
First of three steps
The meeting with Serafino was the first step. She met with representatives of the eight public service answering points (PSAPs) in the county. Those include the county 911 call center in Howland and seven cities, townships and a village that answer their own 911 calls. They are Liberty, Girard, Newton Falls, Warren Township, Niles, Hubbard and Lordstown.
The main thing standing in the way of Trumbull County's getting a better system is an agreement by the PSAPs about who will answer the wireless calls. Also, they have to get together and tell the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio their plan for making the local system work, Serafino said.
After that, the county can progress to Phase One, which would allow receivers of 911 calls to pinpoint wireless phone calls to within a broad area -- such as the tower the call was transmitted through.
That upgrade is not the final solution, but it is a necessary first step, Serafino said. Phase Two gives the call takers the kind of specific locations that allow them to locate 911 wireless phone calls closely enough to find the emergency.
Wireless phone users in Ohio pay a fee of 32 cents per month that feeds into a system the PUCO uses to reimburse costs associated with both phases. Ohio legislation effective on Aug. 1 this year established the fees.
runyan@vindy.com