Every year 350–400 people die in submersed vehicles in North America, with these deaths accounting for up to 10% of all drownings. Vehicle submersion has the highest fatality rate of any type of single vehicle accident. In the past, emergency dispatch protocols for sinking vehicles either have been non-existent or were ineffective to deal with this rapidly deteriorating situation, in which a vehicle can fill with water and sink completely (if the water is deep enough), because with this type of incident, emergency response times are usually much longer than the period...
Every year, 350-400 people die in submersed vehicles in North America, with these deaths accounting for up to 10% of all drownings. Vehicle submersion has the highest fatality rate of any type of single vehicle accident.5 Most of these incidents are survivable, as vehicles usually hit the water in an upright position causing, at most, non-disabling injuries; in these cases death results from either ineffective, or no, self-rescue actions by the victim(s). In general, emergency dispatch protocols for sinking vehicles have been either nonexistent or ineffective to deal...
The value of dispatch in modern Emergency Medical Services (EMS) systems cannot be understated. Among many other roles, an Emergency Medical Dispatcher (EMD) is responsible for accurate response selection. Response is based on EMD-assigned dispatch codes upon completion of caller-interrogation questions in a dispatch protocol system. When two or more signs, symptoms, or situational conditions are encountered in a calltaker evaluation, but are assigned and reported as a single, dispatch-defined code descriptor during the call-taking process by an EMD, a data hiding...
