Video transcript

New emergency SMS service for Deaf, deafened, hard of hearing and speech impaired people in the SW England. If you come across, or are involved in an emergency you can use your phone to text the emergency services for help. An emergency is: when life is at risk, people are trapped or in trouble, a crime is taking place, someone is hurt and needs medical attention or there is a fire. Text 80999.

Remember to text:

• what the problem is
• which emergency service you need (police fire and rescue, ambulance, coastguard, mountain or cave rescue)
• where the emergency is give the road or street name and the village, town or city name if you can include the house number or name of property and the postcode if you don’t know this text where the emergency is near e.g. near to post office or outside cinema

Your information is then sent to a central police emergency control centre and they will deal with your request for help on behalf of all the emergency services. They will then send a text back to you to confirm they have received your message and let you know help is on the way. They may ask you for more information.

Important: try other ways to contact the emergency services as no text messages are guaranteed as they rely on mobile phone signals and phone companies. You will know your message has been received only when you receive a text back from the emergency control centre. Therefore, make sure you continue to try other ways of contacting the emergency services until you receive this confirmation, such as alerting passers by or people near you. The police emergency control centre can not be held responsible for delays in receiving text messages.