NAPLES, Fla. — The Collier County Sheriff's Office is working with a new 911 technology called Rapid SOS, which they say is already helping with response times and responding to major events like Hurricane Ian.
Rapid SOS connects your smart devices directly with 911, without sign-up, giving operators information like your exact location. If you have your health information on your phone, it will automatically gather and send it directly to first responders. It can also connect to apps like Uber's SOS system and provide 911 operators with information like the driver or license plate of the vehicle.
Collier County was part of the original beta testing for Rapid SOS in 2017 and has been an active user since 2019.
Collier County Sheriff Kevin Rambosk said this technology is already paying off — providing the sheriff's office with the exact location of a plane that crashed in the Everglades in 2021 via the 911 call.
Sheriff Rambosk said this technology is especially useful when people don't know where they are.
"When we can pinpoint a location of somebody that may be lost or injured, and they don't know where they are at,” said Sheriff Rambosk. “And we can respond much more quickly to that emergency."
This technology was also key during Hurricane Ian. With the hurricane's storm surge flooding the coastline, Rapid SOS helped the sheriff's office respond to calls in order of importance, as the system puts all the calls together on a single map.
"You can see where there are hot spots and pockets of need. Second, is getting enough information to effectively triage,” said Michael Martin, the CEO of Rapid SOS. “So, for example, someone that has preexisting health conditions. Maybe you need to elevate the response to that individual."
And this is just the start. Martin tells Fox 4 this company is working on ways to improve this system even further to include things like gunshot detection and 3D mapping.
"Some examples of what that might look like is actually using the camera systems in our schools to detect weapons before the first shot is even fired," said Martin. "One other example is in our homes, many people have a home security system, but traditionally that has existed separate from the 911 system. So now, if you opt into it, you can actually allow 911 to digitally get the location of your home and potentially the external camera."
CCSO said once that technology is available, they will be looking to add that to their current system. The Rapid SOS system is completely funded by via grant for the next 5 years, meaning no cost to the taxpayer.
