It didn't take long for the Clark County's new wireless 9-1-1 tracking service to pay major dividends.
The Sheriff's Department has been working on the program for three years
Clark and Eau Claire counties have become two of the first counties in the state that can track and map emergency calls made by cell phone.
“It gives the location of the tower that the call is coming from. The dispatcher can than do a manual rebid, which will give the 'lat and the long' giving a GPS area of where the caller is at,” explains Chief Deputy Jim Backus. “We also have a screen that will specifically locate whewre the call is coming from.”
The service was tested in mid-October, and had its first real life test on Monday.
A hunter called 9-1-1 from the Clark County Forest in the Town of Mentor. He was tracking a deer and became lost after dark.
“Our communications deputy was immediately able to map where he was at. We sent a deputy down there, he blew his siren and within minutes, the bow hunter was able to find his way out,” Bacus explains.