The Fayette County 911 Center earlier this year was recognized by the Association of Public Safety Communications Officials (APCO) International, receiving APCO’s 2019 Technology Leadership Award for a Small Communications Center. The center’s staff say the new Carbyne technology is paying dividends.
The Technology Leadership Award recognizes communications centers of up to 75 employees that use technological advancements to benefit their centers, employees and customers, according to APCO.
For Fayette, that technological advancement was the integration of the Carbyne c-Lite Next Gen technology, with Fayette being the first E-911 center in the U.S. to use the technology designed to give dispatchers the ability to receive video and texts from the caller while pinpointing the caller’s location down to approximately three meters.
“The Carbyne technology that is currently available in Fayette County is c-Lite and we are testing and will be going live with cLive in 2020,” said center Assistant Director Amber Smith. “Essentially, we have existing call-taking software and c-Lite is a plugin that gives us the Carbyne technology. C-Live will replace our existing call-taking software with seamless access to everything Carbyne has to offer: device location, live video streaming, chat 9-1-1 functionality and text to 911.”
So how does the Carbyne system work in the real world? Smith provided two recent examples of its use.
On Oct. 13, 2019 – The Fayette County 911 Center was inundated with 911 calls on October 13, 2019 in regards to a plane that crashed in Brooks. Callers reported the incident from various locations: near Crabapple Road, Horton Creek Trail, Woods Road, Grant Road, Lowery Drive, Rowland Road and Kelly Road. With Carbyne’s precise location technology, communications officers (dispatchers) were able to locate the address where the plane went down on Grant Road and pinpoint exactly where the plane was located in the wooded pasture.
On Nov. 17, 2019, a disoriented and distraught caller could only state “I have no idea” when asked for her location when she was involved in a motor vehicle collision with injuries on Nov. 17. The communications officer was able to utilize Carbyne immediately and assured the caller that help was on the way. Carbyne technology located the collision site on Ga. Highway 54 near South Sandy Creek Road, plotting right in front of 1113 Highway 54 which was the exact location of the caller when responders arrived on scene.
Founded in Israel in 2014, Carbyne’s stated mission is to save lives by minimizing response time and maximizing the efficiency of call-takers and first responders, according to the Carbyne website.
Founded in 1935, APCO International is the world’s oldest and largest organization of public safety communications professionals and supports the largest U.S. membership base of any public safety association. It serves the needs of public safety communications practitioners worldwide – and the welfare of the general public as a whole – by providing complete expertise, professional development, technical assistance, advocacy and outreach, according to APCO.
