Latest / 360 with Katie Woolf / Matt Hepworth spoke with Emergency Communications Centre Manager Craig Garraway and NT Police Acting Supt Drew Slape

Transcript

Matt Hepworth spoke with Emergency Communications Centre Manager Craig Garraway and NT Police Acting Supt Drew Slape · 360 with Katie Woolf

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: But joining me well, I would normally say on the phone,
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: but it's in the studio this morning from Saint John's
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: the manager of Emergency Communications Center, Craig Garaway. Great to
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: have you in the studio this morning, Craig.
• 0:11
  Speaker 2: Great to be here Maddie and actually meet your face
• 0:13
  Speaker 2: to face for a change.
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: And joining you in the studio this morning as well
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: is Anti Police Acting Superintendent Drew slap Drew, Good morning to.
• 0:21
  Speaker 3: You as well.
• 0:21
  Speaker 4: Morning Maddie.
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: Gentlemen, we've got you in the studio to talk about
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: the Emergency Plus app. Now, I raced at the last
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: minute to download this before we get into I guess
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: helping me with it on my phone. Can you tell
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: us exactly what the Emergency Plus app is?
• 0:35
  Speaker 5: So basically, Maddie, the Emergency Plus app has been around
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  Speaker 5: for a number of years and it's just gone through
• 0:40
  Speaker 5: its latest iteration and update, and it's encumbassing some new
• 0:43
  Speaker 5: software called what three Words, which is a location enabling
• 0:47
  Speaker 5: software which will allow people who are users of the
• 0:50
  Speaker 5: app to give some words to emergency service operators when
• 0:54
  Speaker 5: they call police, fire or ambulance, and that will be
• 0:58
  Speaker 5: able to on our system. We can then look that
• 1:00
  Speaker 5: person's location far easier than giving lat long coordinates, which
• 1:04
  Speaker 5: you know, of course, can be seven eight digits long
• 1:07
  Speaker 5: for each each latitude and longitude. So the premise is
• 1:12
  Speaker 5: that the world is broken up into three meter by
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  Speaker 5: three meter squares, and each square is given a unique
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  Speaker 5: identifier with three words.
• 1:21
  Speaker 4: He's the name? What three words?
• 1:22
  Speaker 5: Yeah?
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: Okay, now I've downloaded this on my phone. I believe
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: you're going to walk me through exactly how this would
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: work and what three words or the location that we
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: would be in right now.
• 1:33
  Speaker 5: So basically what happens is I encourage everyone listening to
• 1:36
  Speaker 5: download the app. It's called Emergency Plus and it's an
• 1:39
  Speaker 5: orange icon on your device. Once you open up the
• 1:43
  Speaker 5: app for the first time, you'll be asked to enable
• 1:45
  Speaker 5: location services and you need to select.
• 1:48
  Speaker 3: Yes, okay, yes, allow, Yes, there we go.
• 1:51
  Speaker 5: So what that'll do is that'll allow your phone and
• 1:53
  Speaker 5: your phone only. It doesn't send any data, but it'll
• 1:56
  Speaker 5: allow your phone to access the GPS abilities within the phone,
• 2:01
  Speaker 5: which then displays on a screen within that app. Yes,
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  Speaker 5: So it's a really simple app. All it's got on
• 2:06
  Speaker 5: there is you'll see at the top there's triple zero,
• 2:09
  Speaker 5: which is the number obviously to call it an emergency.
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  Speaker 5: The number for SEES, which is if you've got storm
• 2:14
  Speaker 5: damage or you know something that you need assistance with
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  Speaker 5: flooding during the course of a cyclone or weather event,
• 2:20
  Speaker 5: you can call SEES, and then the Police Assistance Line,
• 2:23
  Speaker 5: which is one through on Triple four. If you hit
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  Speaker 5: any of those icons, that will bring up the number
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  Speaker 5: and you can then call them. And then under that
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  Speaker 5: it'll display your location. Yes, so I give you a
• 2:32
  Speaker 5: street address, your latitude, longitude, and then down the bottom
• 2:35
  Speaker 5: it's also got a map and you'll see it has.
• 2:37
  Speaker 4: What three words? Yes? So what are those? What three words?
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: We are in link scar perfect, Okay, So it would
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: make absolutely no sense to me.
• 2:47
  Speaker 5: So what you would do is it an emergency, You
• 2:50
  Speaker 5: would contact Triple zero yep, and the operator. The first
• 2:53
  Speaker 5: question you always get asked by an emergency operator is
• 2:56
  Speaker 5: what's your location? Yeah, because once we know your location,
• 2:58
  Speaker 5: we can see police, fire ambulance to you and to
• 3:01
  Speaker 5: help you out.
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  Speaker 4: If you don't know it and you have this app,
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  Speaker 4: you can.
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  Speaker 5: Read out those three words. Our operators can then type
• 3:08
  Speaker 5: it into the system. They don't access your phone, it's
• 3:10
  Speaker 5: through a separate system. They type in the three words,
• 3:12
  Speaker 5: and I'll bring up those GPS coordinates and then we
• 3:15
  Speaker 5: can send help to that location.
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: So what are the parameters of each of the three words? Again,
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  Speaker 1: like how far would I have to travel from where
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: we are now before those three words would change?
• 3:24
  Speaker 5: While I'm over the other side of the studio from
• 3:26
  Speaker 5: you and mine are searches, water and lunges.
• 3:30
  Speaker 4: It's pretty accurate.
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  Speaker 5: The GPS data on your phone using Wi Fi is
• 3:34
  Speaker 5: really accurate.
• 3:35
  Speaker 4: And this is really good in situations.
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  Speaker 5: You'd be surprised how often we would have people in
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  Speaker 5: remote areas hikers larapinta trail somewhere where you've got reception,
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  Speaker 5: you've deviated from the track, you don't know where you are.
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  Speaker 5: We get these sort of calls and trying to talk
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  Speaker 5: people through getting Latin long it's quite difficult, whereas when
• 3:52
  Speaker 5: they have this app, it's really simple. They give us
• 3:54
  Speaker 5: the three words, we look it up on a map
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  Speaker 5: and we know exactly where to go.
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: Craig, I might bring you back in here. How import
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: is this for the work of paramedics and Saint John's.
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah, look, Mattie, it can be the difference between life
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  Speaker 2: and death. It's as simple as that, and there's been
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  Speaker 2: a number of scenarios in Tasmania recently where this app
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: has been used. We use this in July on the
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  Speaker 2: larap in the trail, as Drew said, perfect example, we
• 4:19
  Speaker 2: had a person that had been hiking fifty year old
• 4:21
  Speaker 2: mile hiking on that trail for up to five hours,
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  Speaker 2: has had a fall and has been injured and can't
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  Speaker 2: walk any further. And we spent over five minutes on
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  Speaker 2: the phone trying to identify where this person was there
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: in the middle of nowhere effectively, of course, and luckily
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  Speaker 2: the person on the other end of the mobile phone,
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  Speaker 2: so I've got the what three word app and we've
• 4:40
  Speaker 2: sort of said, pushed the button and the three words
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  Speaker 2: that came up with a ruthless pitching an apartment. From that,
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  Speaker 2: we were able to land a helicopter with an intensive
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  Speaker 2: care paramedic right next to that patient.
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  Speaker 4: Wow, that's how accurate it was.
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  Speaker 2: That's how simple. We could have spent hours with police
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  Speaker 2: and emergency services trying to locate these people. But this
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: is how good it is. And you know, I implore
• 5:02
  Speaker 2: people to download it. It will save lives.
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: As you mentioned, Drude, Obviously, the accuracy when you've got
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: your Wi Fi on is incredibly detailed.
• 5:11
  Speaker 3: What about for.
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: Those who don't have Wi Fi at the moment, is
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: it's still quite accurate?
• 5:15
  Speaker 5: Yeah, so look at it relies outside of Wi Fi
• 5:18
  Speaker 5: service or an area where there's Wi Fi signals. It
• 5:21
  Speaker 5: relies on the phone's GPS capabilities out in the great outdoors.
• 5:26
  Speaker 4: In open air, which is generally where people have calls
• 5:28
  Speaker 4: for service.
• 5:29
  Speaker 5: It's quite accurate because you don't have any impediments, you know,
• 5:31
  Speaker 5: any buildings and interrupt with a signal.
• 5:33
  Speaker 4: So that in itself is still quite accurate.
• 5:35
  Speaker 5: And the difference is when we do searchers land searches,
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  Speaker 5: if we can scale down to a really small area
• 5:42
  Speaker 5: that we need to search, it saves time, and that
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  Speaker 5: time can be the difference in a lot of circumstances
• 5:47
  Speaker 5: between life and death.
• 5:48
  Speaker 3: Question who comes up with the three words?
• 5:52
  Speaker 5: So the company itself is the one that comes up
• 5:56
  Speaker 5: with them? Yeah, I imagine that they're randomly generated.
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: Yes, yes, I won't quite so it wasn't quite sure
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: where you were going when you said pitching for a
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: second there, I thought, okay, this could be venturing down
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: dangerous territory. The app you walked us through, how to
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: download it before. I'm assuming it is a free droup.
• 6:12
  Speaker 4: Yeah it is. It's a free app.
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  Speaker 5: It's available on iOS Store, the App Store and on
• 6:17
  Speaker 5: the Google Play Store. So as I said, I encourage
• 6:21
  Speaker 5: everyone log on, it's free, download it. You never know
• 6:24
  Speaker 5: when you might be out hiking in a remote area
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  Speaker 5: and if you've got it there, you've got the location
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  Speaker 5: services enabled.
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  Speaker 4: It very well could save your life.
• 6:31
  Speaker 3: What has the uptake been like or.
• 6:33
  Speaker 5: I'd have to rely on the national figures and I
• 6:35
  Speaker 5: don't have access to them at the moment. But since
• 6:38
  Speaker 5: the relaunch with incorporation, I know that there has been
• 6:41
  Speaker 5: much greater uptake and they have been doing a lot
• 6:44
  Speaker 5: of media around Australia because it's a national app obviously
• 6:48
  Speaker 5: to encourage people to download it for exactly the circumstances
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  Speaker 5: as we've described.
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  Speaker 1: Well, I've downloaded it for the first time now and
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  Speaker 1: I love it. All My words have changed now? Is
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: that is that normal?
• 6:58
  Speaker 4: Well? They probably it's probably just takes.
• 7:00
  Speaker 5: There's probably some variance given you the location services of
• 7:04
  Speaker 5: in here, but I think they're all generally fairly fairly similar.
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: Within that same parameter. Well, Anti Police Acting Superintendent Drew
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  Speaker 1: Slape thank you so much for coming in this morning
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: and talking us through that, and Craig gar away from
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: Saint John's as well with the emergency plus app there
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: and of course some of the incidents on the weekend. Gentlemen,
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: thank you for both coming in. Craig, great to see
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: you in person.
• 7:23
  Speaker 2: Thank you, Modey, great to see you too.
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  Speaker 3: Very good.
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: And of course, so just before you go, I have
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: a listener question which Ronnie just flagged for me at
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: the last minute.
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  Speaker 3: There I produce them through the window.
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  Speaker 4: Listener.
• 7:34
  Speaker 3: Paul wants to know if it would work while you're
• 7:36
  Speaker 3: on the water.
• 7:38
  Speaker 5: Yes, absolutely, every excellent throughout the world. Every portion of
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  Speaker 5: lean throughout the world is broken up into three meter
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  Speaker 5: square blocks, so it will work anywhere.
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  Speaker 1: There you go, Paul, I almost missed that, but we're
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: able to get it in. Good on your tru and Craig,
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: thank you so much for coming in this morning.