ABBEVILLE COUNTY

               EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT

Helpful Information When Calling 9-1-1...

• Write out your address on a small piece of paper and tack it on the wall above your phone, or tape it to the bottom of your phone. This will make it easier to give or verify your address if you or your child become too nervous or frightened to remember it.
   

• TEACH YOUR CHILDREN ABOUT 9-1-1. MAKE SURE THEY LEARN THEIR PHONE NUMBER AND THEIR ADDRESS. You never know, your children may need to call 9-1-1 for YOU someday. And please DO NOT refer to it as 9-11 (nine eleven), that will only confuse them. It is just as important to teach your children NOT to play with the telephone. Dialing 9-1-1 when there is no emergency may take a dispatcher away from a REAL emergency.
   

• We recommend that you do not program 9-1-1 into your telephone. The number is easy to remember. By programming the number you have more of a chance of accidentally dialing 9-1-1. If you feel you need to "test" your phone to see if 911 works, call our office first at (864) 459-8451. If we are not busy with an emergency, we would be happy to verify your address and let you dial 9-1-1.
   

• 9-1-1 is a "free" call. This means that it does not cost anything to dial it from your home or any other location. If your phone service has been shut off, you will still be able to dial 9-1-1. You don't even have to insert money in a pay phone to dial 9-1-1.
   

• If you normally dial "9" to get an outside line at work, remember to dial that "9" before you dial 9-1-1, if you have an emergency.
   

• Dial 9-1-1 ONLY for emergencies. Emergencies might include but are not limited to: a serious medical problem such as chest pains, severe bleeding, seizures, difficulty breathing or cardiac arrest, any kind of fire whether it's a home, business, vacant building, vehicle, brush or forest fire or any emergency where life, body or personal property is in immediate danger, such as burglary in progress, destruction of someone's vehicle, fights in progress or anything involving weapons. If you are not sure whether something is an emergency or not, dial 9-1-1 and let us make that determination.
   

• Please do NOT dial 9-1-1 for non-emergencies. Non-emergencies may be a property damage accident including a car striking a deer (provided no person is injured). Although we all love animals, this type of situation is not considered a 911 emergency. Other non-emergencies might include vandalism where the suspect is no longer at the location, disabled vehicles (provided they are not auto accidents with injuries), cows and/or horses in the roadway or debris in the roadway. These calls can be handled by contacting us on our non-emergency lines.
   

• PLEASE do NOT dial 9-1-1 and ask us to transfer you to a police agency unless it is a REAL emergency.
   

• DO NOT dial 9-1-1 if there is a power outage in your area. Contact your local utility company to report or inquire about it. (On weekends & holidays for the Abbeville Utilities it will be transferred to the Abbeville 911 Center on our non emergency line) If you or someone in your home relies on the power to run an oxygen tank or some other sort of life sustaining equipment then it is ok to dial 9-1-1.
   

• DO NOT hang up the phone if you dial 9-1-1 by mistake. Please stay on the line and let us know that you dialed 9-1-1 by accident. Even if you don't think you dialed 9-1-1 and it comes into our office, we need you to stay on the line and let us verify that you have no problem. There are occasions where the number you are dialing triggers 9-1-1. Many times calls made out of the country trigger 9-1-1. It is important to remain on the line and verify that there is no problem. If you don't stay on the line, we will have to call you back. If we cannot get someone on the other end of the phone, then we have to dispatch the nearest police officer who will respond to your residence assuming this is a real emergency. Not only is that dangerous on the roadway, but it also takes a police officer away from the ability to respond to another call that is a real emergency.
   

• Please be careful when cleaning or moving your phone. It is very easy to accidentally dial into the 9-1-1 center. Also, please make sure your battery is charged in your cordless phone, occasionally that will cause an accidental dial of 9-1-1.
   

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Here are some tips to help make an emergency call go smoothly and quickly:

• When you dial 9-1-1 with an emergency, remain CALM, be PATIENT, SPEAK CLEARLY & please be COURTEOUS. Sometimes it's important to take a deep breath before you pick up the phone.
   
• KNOW the address of the emergency, directions to that emergency and the phone number you are calling from. Please understand that no matter how often the rescue squad, fire company or police have been to your residence or how well known you are in your community, there may be people on the crew that may not live in your area and will have no idea who you are. We typically have people call us and say "They know where we are". It is important that you always verify your address and have good directions for us to relay to the responding units.
   
• Please do not insist that the dispatcher "hurry up" or demand that we get there "right now!" When you call the 911 center you are getting a call taker and dispatcher, you are not getting the fire company or police department or the rescue squad building. Once we have the proper information we immediately determine who is needed to respond to the call and dispatch appropriately.
   
• Let the call taker ask you the questions. We have a certain way of handling each call. Sometimes the questions may be asked more than once to clarify or re-verify the information. Each question has a reason for being asked. No one is deliberately stalling or delaying the emergency.
   
• Providing call volume allows, Each call is answered by 2 people, one will be the call taker and the other will be the dispatcher. As soon as the dispatcher gets enough information, he/she will dispatch the proper units for the emergency. At this time the call taker/interviewer will be asking additional questions and or giving you instructions to help in that particular situation.

• If it is a police emergency, the call taker will instruct you on the best way to maintain your safety.
   
• If it is a fire call, the call taker will instruct you to get out of the residence. He/she will need to know if there is anyone in the building who cannot get out and why.
   
• If it is a medical call the call taker will be able to give you instructions on what to do to help the patient until the EMS personnel get on the scene. For example, if the patient is bleeding, the call taker will instruct you to take a clean cloth and place it over the wound applying pressure. If the patient isn't breathing, our call taker will instruct you on how to do rescue breathing. For choking we can give you instructions on how to perform the Heimlich Maneuver and for cardiac arrest we can give CPR instructions. Sometimes the instructions we give you may only include having the patient lie down, elevate his/her feet and monitor his breathing and conscious level until EMS arrives. Sometimes that is all you can do. Other instructions that we will give you is to get medication ready for the EMS personnel to see and to put any family pets in another closed room away from the patient. Pets have a tendency to be protective of the patient and may even bite when they are not normally aggressive. Everything you do can be a big help to the patient as long as you REMAIN CALM!
   
• And last, but not least, DO NOT HANG UP THE PHONE until you are instructed to do so by the call taker/interviewer.