KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — A program that allows people to text 911 instead of having to call should be available in the entire state of Tennessee by the end of the year.
The service is meant to help people with speech and hearing disabilities and people in dangerous situations, like domestic abuse.
Text to 911 has been available in Knox County for three years now.
"It has been very successful for us," Brad Anders, the executive director of Knox County 911, said. "The telematics on a phone can give us a lot of information from a car wreck or from a medical issue, so there is a lot of technology coming our way, especially with AI and the amount of data in a phone or data in a car."
Right now, Text to 911 is available to 85% of the population in Tennessee. Anders explained it can be a challenge for smaller, more rural counties to implement the program.
"You have got to have a certain base of technology to get the next level of technology and that is where some of the smaller districts find themselves," Anders added. "It is a huge cost to get that new technology."
But Anders said the entire state should become compliant by the end of the year, which is something the Knoxville Center of the Deaf is happy to see happen sooner rather than later.
"It is very important to have equal access to the services that are standard everywhere else here in Tennessee," Christina Vorreyer-Davis, the center's executive director said.
It is estimated there are about 100,000 deaf and hard-of-hearing people in Tennessee with around half of those living in Knoxville. As a member of the deaf community herself, Vorreyer-Davis recognizes how scary an emergency can be for those who are hard of hearing.
"It would be incredibly stressful to have no access to communication and no way to get help," Vorreyer-Davis emphasized. "The phone does not always work easily for everyone, and so, for the deaf community, they do not have access and that delays the time for them to get medical care, for them to receive any protection, for police to be there."
That is why Vorreyer-Davis describes the Text to 911 program as "empowering" to the deaf and hard-of-hearing community.
"We have a large senior citizen population here who are deaf and they are the ones who really worry about falling," Vorreyer-Davis explained. "They worry about how to get help in case something happens, how they get help quickly."
Despite the success of the program, officials still prefer you call 911 instead of texting if you have that ability.
"Human interaction and hearing the background can make a difference," Anders explained. "Knowing what is around somebody can make a difference. For example, if somebody calls and becomes unconscious, but you can hear certain things or you can hear a train or you can get a feel of where they are based on the technology locating their phone and also what they may be close to."
