North Texas 911 center's video access option for emergency calls may be a ‘game changer'

A North Texas 911 center is offering a service during emergency calls that no other agency is offering.

Dispatchers at the North Texas Emergency Communications Center are not only ready to listen to your call for help, but they are prepared to watch your emergency as it’s happening.

“When someone calls 911, it is their worst day,” said the executive director of NTECC Terry Goswick. “This service allows us to view what’s going on. Just like we were taught when we were little kids: a picture’s worth a thousand words.”

NTECC is a joint 911 dispatch hub serving Carrollton, Addison, Coppell, and Farmers Branch.

Think of ‘Prepared 911’ as a one-way FaceTime call for help. You cannot see the dispatcher, but if you allow it, the dispatcher can see what you’re seeing in real time.

The service is now available for the 250-thousand people who live or visit the service areas on a daily basis calling 911 or the non-emergency line *247.

The service is optional. The caller can stop sharing real-time video at any time and once the call ends, NTECC says access to the caller’s video camera ends as well.

Not every call to 911 will lead to a request to access the caller’s video camera, said Goswick. That would require an inordinate amount of storage space.

Only in cases involving large emergency situations, 911 call-takers will send a text message to the caller’s cell phone asking them to ‘opt-in,’ allowing the center access to their video camera.

“If there’s a mass casualty going on,” said Goswick as an example. “There’s a shooting, there’s a large fire, there’s a major wreck on the interstate.”

The goal is for trained personnel to survey the situation and immediately relay vital information to police and firefighters, including sending videos directly to their computers or tablets.

“From the police and fire perspective, the people working in the field, we’re excited about this,” said Rex Redden, Carrollton’s Executive Director of Public Safety. “It’s going to give us much more accurate information when something’s going on.”

In the case of a stranger following you in the dark, access to the victim’s video camera could help capture the perpetrator before it’s too late.

Redden, the city’s former chief of police, says video captured and stored by the 911 center would also be admissible in court as are 911 audio calls.

He calls Prepared 911 a ‘game changer’ in the event of a mass shooting.

“Sometimes we do have access to school video cameras, but there’s a delay in that and then trying to get it set up and active when we get to the scene. But this way, we’re seeing it first hand,” said Redden.

The service would be also vital in situations where it is not safe for the caller to speak but can lift their phone’s camera to show what is happening around them.

911 communications employees, who already endure a stressful job, will also have the ability to choose whether to watch an emergency unfold.

“Now, they’re going to be seeing the same type of scenes [police and fire] see,” said Redden. “So, we did have to prepare staff for that.”

Goswick says NTECC’s 55 employees underwent mental health training and have access to mental health resources.

They can also opt not to see the video shared by the 911 caller.

“They can blur their screen out and then another call-taker who is sitting at another console can watch it,” he said.

Since its launch, Goswick says the service has already paid off in some cases, including a caller reporting a major accident.

“They called and we were able to see where the vehicles were and we were able to tell responders: they’re going to be on the right side, blocking these two lanes and one car is on the shoulder,” he said.