CHAUTAUQUA COUNTY, NY — The future of communication is always changing, and Chautauqua County has benefited from the change.

Emergency Services members are contacted many ways in order to respond to situations, but a new program that has been used for the last year in the county is helping those first responders understand the situation they are responding to in more depth and allowing fire chiefs and other heads of departments to know who is responding and what skills they have.

“The next phase of this, the next generation, we have been playing with this for a year now is I Am Responding,” said Julius Leone, director of Emergency Services.

I Am Responding is a system that uses pre-existing dispatch capabilities, but allows dispatch and the stations see who is responding and when.

The website for the system states, “IamResponding.com’s patented system lets you know immediately who is responding to your calls and dispatches, where they are responding, and when they will be responding.

This saves critical time, and reduces response times, for fire departments, EMS agencies, SAR and technical rescue teams, and any other incident response teams, when responding to emergencies. After dispatch (through any existing dispatch system), members of your department, agency or team who are available to respond to an emergency incident simply press one button on any telephone, and any internet connected computer or mobile phone instantly displays who is responding to your incident, their qualifications, and when and where they are responding.”

Leone explained that the I Am Responding system is a reply system that gives detailed information to those commanding the scene on who will be coming, when they arrive, and what skills they have.

“It used to be that when a call went out, it was whoever shows up, shows up,” he said.

Now this system allows commanders to know with a definite certainty if the members with the skills they need will be on the scene.

“The fire chief and dispatch get a great picture now of who is coming,” he said.

All fire departments in the county with the exception of the career departments are using this system, he said, including members of the special teams.

“It is all based on a cellphone,” he said.

Working with existing dispatch technology cuts a lot of extra communication and time out of the response with this system, he said.

When an emergency responder gets a call, whether it be a text message or through their minitor pagers, they are able to pick up their phone, dial a special 800 number, which many have on speed dial, and a list of predescribed options allows them to touch a button and signal to the dispatch and commanders these certain options.

According to Mike Mendez, planning technician with the Department of Emergency Services, if a responder presses the speed dial, lets the phone ring and does not place an option within 10 seconds, a default option will appear and still tell commanders he is responding.

“I can call the number, and put the phone in my pocket and go,” he said, “and the commanders will get the default message that I am responding.”

Other options allow the responders to tell their estimated time of arrival, whether they will be heading directly to the scene or to the fire department, and what equipment they have with them.

“It takes all the guess work out of who is coming,” he said.

Leone explained that the county has had great success in their use of the system.

“We have been growing and finding our best use for it and we have had a tremendous amount of success with it,” he said. “It is software that we are utilizing so that you receive the message there is a fire, there is an EMS call, and using your cellphone, there are pre-described numbers, ’1′ would mean something, ’2′ would mean something and so on, you can send a message back and the fire chief and dispatch will know that you are coming, if you are going to the station, if you are going to the scene, what your level of training is, if you are an interior firefighter, if you are an EMT or a paramedic, everything.”

Mendez and Leone spoke about a cliff rescue in Dunkirk, which was coordinated with the program, and allowed them to respond and rescue four students who had been trapped in a cave.

According to Leone, the program is a subscription-based program, with the first two years paid by the county through a Homeland Security grant. He also said that Chautauqua County is the first office to use this program on a county-wide scale.

Mendez said that any chief or commanding officer with a smart phone is able to log into the system from anywhere with a cellphone signal, and properly know what resources will be available to him at the scene.

“It is another way of using technology that gives us the ability to identify and respond quicker and safer,” he said.

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