Fond du Lac County is making use of new, clever technology to get first responders to the right location.
The technology, called “what3words,” converts numeric GPS coordinates into words. The words are then decoded by first responders using the what3words app in the field.
Fond du Lac County Communications Director Amy Haase says this eliminates the risk of typing in a wrong number for GPS coordinates in degrees, minutes and seconds or decimal degrees. When a person calls 911, their GPS location is automatically received.
But instead of numbers, dispatchers and first responders with what3words can share a location as “crown.friend.super,” for example. The what3words app acts as a compass or sends the coordinates to a navigation app like Google Maps, Waze, or Bing Maps.