I believe that this news is going to be very exciting for the people especially in the deaf community who is deaf or hard of hearing because everyday they struggles to have access to some services that everyone has except the people who is deaf or hard of hearing that requires voice or to listen. The most of the problem in deaf community would be communication barriers which is obvious because they use sign language (American Sign Language/ASL) to communicate and most of the people who is hearing don’t know their language to be able to communicate with the people who is deaf or hard of hearing, when they are at some important events by law they are required to provide the interpreter to the people who is deaf or hard of hearing so that each others can communicate. Now it is impossible for anyone who is deaf or hard of hearing to use the phone to make a phone call because they are not able to hear so if they ever need medical attention or is in danger of something and they won’t be able to get some help by calling the emergency center using the number of 911, that is the problem and unfair to them because hearing people can call 911 when they need medical attention or need some emergency assistance. Imagine if some of the people who is deaf or hard of hearing have a heart attack or having their house being broken in by a robber, how are they able to get a hold of the emergency center to dispatch polices or the hospital? Very difficult because I am hard of hearing so I can tell you that not being able to have any access to the emergency center is very worrisome but luckily I never had the reason to need to call 911 at least yet and hope that I never will.
For many years the people who is deaf and hard of hearing have always been searching for solution to have access to emergency center 911 and the easiest way to have the access to the emergency center would be able to send a text message to the emergency center 911 for some help and many of agencies and organizations, probably governments as well I am assuming have ignored our suggestion for a solution or our begging to have a way to have an easier access to the emergency center by 911 while that there is absolutely no way we can make a phone call to 911 so only our best solution is sending a text message and we have suggested the solution several years ago, too way long and I am sure everyone in the deaf community agree with that. Now there is a very exciting news that has been announced recently and it is about the time that it is happening because this is going to be very helpful and finally for us to be able to get some assistance from emergency center for medical attention or others.
Deaf community, text-to-911 is here!
The exciting news that was announced recently is that we can finally send a text message to 911 for emergency reasons only and they finally consider our suggestion for a solution to be able to get through the emergency center by sending a text message to 911! Exciting news for every one of us who is deaf or hard of hearing because now that we can take one of many things off our list for the issues for the people who is deaf or hard of hearing in community, this is absolutely great but only one problem that is still there and that would be it’s not nationwide yet but they said that many of areas now have it but few of the areas that hasn’t gotten the text-to-911 service yet will be getting it in very few of weeks which is understandable as it’s the beginning and it takes a time for everything to be overridden in nations, I mean for the service to be enabled in every areas in the nation and I hope that the other nations in the world will start to do the same for their people who is deaf or hard of hearing because if America is only nation that is going to have the service then it’s still unfair and it is the other nations fault but at least there is another reason America is so great even if the governments in United States isn’t but there is still few of people in the governments that cares about us especially enough to make sure that we have the access to emergency center by sending a message to 911 for some help.
Emergency Center has said that they are looking forward to deaf and hard of hearing people to use the service but they said that there is downside is that they are worried that a lot of people is going to abuse it so if some of you who is not deaf or hard of hearing I ask you to please not to abuse it so to keep the text-to-911 service open and not busy so that deaf and hard of hearing people can be able to get through the emergency center for some help because if some of you are going to abuse it by prank on them or a such thing, it will make the text-to-911 service extremely busy and harder for us who is deaf or hard of hearing to be able to get through but we do welcome any of you to use the service only if you truly need to when making a phone call to 911 is impossible or difficult for you to do so.
Source:Â Cell Providers Support Text to 911 by MiNews 26.
Any one of you who is deaf or hard of hearing I suggest that you go ahead and add the number 911 to your contacts on your cell phone so that it would only take two clicks to send a text message to the emergency center 911 instead of having to do few of things to text to 911 so less of a hassle for you, and please do not assume that text to 911 service is up and running in your area so be sure to have a backup/alternative plan if your area hasn’t yet to enable the text-to-911 service yet and I have contacted few of local cell phone providers and they have said that they do not support it so be sure to call your cell phone provider to see if your local provider do support it so that way you can use the service but if you are with popular providers such as Verizon or AT&T then you don’t need to worry about it because Verizon and AT&T was the ones who wanted and agreed to work with each other to be able to provide the text-to-911 service for deaf and hard of hearing customers to make it easier for us.
But deaf community now we can rest about the text-to-911 service and start on working on the other problem to find a solution to solve the other problem that we have on our list in the deaf community! Please leave a comment below in this article and let me know what is your opinion about the text-to-911? If you are deaf or not please do still leave a comment below and share your opinion especially if you think that there would be a lot of people going to abuse the text-to-911 system? That’s something we fear for but hopefully not.
Thank you for reading this article and please keep checking back here to see if I am going to write another new article which I should be before end of the day if I am able to come up with something or some ideas on what to write and if you have any idea what I should write about or on then please either leave a comment or shoot me a e-mail by contact tab on the top of this website or you can find me on Twitter or Facebook page which can be found on the right side of the website. Please stay careful wherever you all are or whatever it is that you are planning on to do today, stay awesome my friends!
- Joshie.
