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911 texting service is in its third year

 It’s been nearly three years since Pitkin County implemented the 9-1-1 text messaging system. Aspen Public Radio’s Barbara Platts visited the county’s dispatch center to learn more about this emergency communication option.

Spend just a few minutes at the Pitkin County Dispatch Center and it’s easy to tell, this team has a lot going on. At the new offices at the Aspen Business Center, it seems like there is rarely a dull moment.

Dispatchers have to listen to the police radio on multiple channels, they operate doors at the Pitkin County Jail for the guards, plus they answer emergency and service calls. Sometimes they even do research for a citizen or a police officer.

A smaller and perhaps less known task they have is to keep an eye out for incoming text messages to 9-1-1. This is a service that Pitkin County has offered for nearly three years. They were the first in the state of Colorado to do so.

Ginny Bultman, an emergency dispatch supervisor, said the text come in simply and quickly via a computer program. She said that this is a very small part of the services they provide. In the past three years, only around a dozen texts have been sent in. They prefer it that way because they would rather have a person dial 9-1-1 and speak to them over the phone.

“People are used to dialing 9-1-1 and that’s what we want them to do because of the conversation,” she said. “We can interrupt, we can move quickly.”

However, calling is not always an option. People often text 9-1-1 if they are in domestic violence situations and they don’t want to be heard. In Pitkin County, the main reason for texting tends to be search and rescue scenarios. Bultman said she once got a text from North Maroon Peak.

“Where they’re high on a mountain top and they can’t quite get a cell signal enough to have a verbal conversation, but they can get an SMS text conversation,“ Bultman explained.

In many parts of the country, texting 9-1-1 is still not an option. In Colorado, it’s not available in 65 percent of the state. However, it is a service that is offered on the western slope and the more populated areas along the Front Range.

Although this is not yet a popular way of communicating with the Pitkin County Dispatch Center, Bultman said if it has helped save even one life, then it’s worth it.

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