Recently some larger news-services (VG) in Norway has picked up on this story:
The Norwegian Association for Deaf has started a campaign in order to make the Emergency services available to deaf and hard of hearing via SMS. Like it is now, it is NOT POSSIBLE TO SEND SMS TO EMERGENCY NUMBERS IN NORWAY!
Apparently Sweden, Denmark and Iceland all have SMS to emergency services.
See informational video on www.deafnet.no
Here is a captioned (Norwegian) video from Bergen about a deaf man who could not get contact with emergency services when his boat caught fire. They mention the project in Sweden which supposedly will be permanent.
Question to my readers:
Does 911 in the US have this kind of service to deaf?
What about other countries?
I’d like to know, because I travel a bit from time to time…
Thanks to Ann Kristin for making me aware of this.
October 22, 2008 at 8:28 pm
The USA is 20 years behind the Nordic countries, therefore, no such services exist
November 8, 2008 at 1:42 am
We have a few police forces who now take emergency SMS but very very few, and it’s very new. Nothing for ambulances!
http://funnyoldlife.wordpress.com/2008/05/05/new-emergency-text-services/
http://funnyoldlife.wordpress.com/2008/01/22/bus-trouble/
November 8, 2008 at 6:11 pm
Greece has one for police reports..never had the cause to use it anyways.Haven’t checked for hospitals or ambulances.