911 call sent ambulance to wrong city

"A federal regulator is investigating the tragedy but early findings are Comwave acted appropriately, said Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) spokesman Paul Godin. "

Apparently appropriate actions are insufficient.

Here in Ontario the OPP in a cost reduction effort has many of it's detachments closed after 1800(6PM). 911 calls are fielded by "regional centres".

For example a call from Collingwood is answered in Barrie.
Most of South-western Ontario is dispatched from a centre just west of London.

Locally this was what inspired the hiring of Police services froma local town---expanding their force but giving immensely better service....except for the Townships which didn't switch. Dispatched from London (40 miles away) based in Tilsonburg (30 miles the other way).

911 dial a prayer.......

When calling from a tried and true land line phone the 911 dispatcher knows where you are calling from even before they answer your call.

When using a cell phone the 911 dispatcher gets the address of of the cell phone tower your call is relayed from.

When using VOIP you are at the mercy of a third party dispatcher(middleman) who has no clue where you are in the world unless you are able to accurately tell them and they can accurately relay that information to the correct, real and properly trained 911 dispatcher....the fact that you have to go through a middleman will delay response time even if they got all the info straight and correctly communicated to the real 911 dispatcher...

Fifty percent of all 911 calls are now made from cell phones, you must know exactly where you are at all times to keep response time to the minimum.