911 Emergency: Are You As Safe As You Could Be?

(WLTX) ? When you call 911 on your cell phone, operators don?t always know where you?re calling from. So is your safety compromised as a result?

Jim Rion says he can?t forget the day he put 911 to the test.

?I went off onto the side of the culvert and that threw me up into the air,? Rion says. ?I was thinking I might die.?

So help was called. ?They called it in, they said I was on Hines Road and at the corner of Smyrna Church.?

Forty-five minutes later, Jim sat with first responders, but without ambulances. ?They were on Smyrna Church because they didn?t have automatic location identification. They would have come to the right place 20-30 minutes sooner.?

That is, if the county has the latest 911 technology. Without what?s called Phase Two, an operator can only see where you are in relation to the nearest cell tower, not your exact location. And as the percentage of cell phone calls approaches nearly half in the U.S., the FCC says it?s even more important to make sure call centers can locate callers on any type of phone, especially when they?re unable to tell the operator themselves.

That?s the case in Kershaw County, though the most up-to-date technology can cost upwards of a million dollars.

?It makes the job of the telecommunicator much easier, having the best equipment and being able to get as much accurate information as they can,? says Kershaw County 911 Director Kirk Stropes.

He says if it can save at least one life, it?s worth it.

So we decided to see how accurate Phase Two technology is in Kershaw County. So we called at the corner of Laurens and Fair Street. It found us.

?The calls that we received during the test time are pretty accurate, the only problem you run into is if you're in a heavy metal structure and concrete where your cell phone service is limited.?

Since 2002, only four counties and one city in the state have not upgraded to Phase Two. That includes Richland County, putting the county with the state?s capital in the minority.

?I can't speak about before I got here, but I can tell you since I?ve gotten here, working with our county 911 coordinator, with Richland County, with our city administrators, we're moving very quickly and forward, ? says Michael King, the telecommunications director for the Columbia/Richland 911 center since April.

At a call every 45 seconds, he says not having Phase Two is a public safety issue. ?It is very much a concern for us, but we're not just concerned for Phase Two, we're also going to be moving into the next generation.

Richland county officials tell News19 funding has been an issue, but state 911 director Jim Rion believes the contrary. ?Richland County has received a lot of that money, a whole lot of money, more than enough to pay for this equipment.?

According to state financial reports, in the second quarter of this year, Richland County received just over $58,000 from the state based on their cell phone call volume. That?s the ninth most money in the state.

Though Rion says questions still loom as to why Richland County has not upgraded, there are none when it comes to the importance of the technology. ?In all cases, they're going to know where you are better if they had wireless automatic location identification, and in some cases they?re going to know where you are much better.?

Upgrading to Phase Two technology is voluntary Rion says the voluntary partnership between 911 centers and wireless providers makes South Carolina one of the prime programs in the nation.