SURREY Police is joining national celebrations tomorrow (Saturday) to mark the 70th anniversary of the 999 service. The emergency number was launched in the London area on June 30,1937. In the last year staff at the Surrey Police Contact Centre in Guildford received 856,458 non urgent calls and 166,880 emergency 999 calls. This equates to around 450 emergency calls every day. Performance figures show the average time someone waits for a 999 call to be answered by Surrey Police is just four seconds and last year 90.5 per cent of calls were answered within 10 seconds. The contact centre is staffed around the clock 365 days-a-year with highly trained call handlers who are often the first point of contact for victims or witnesses of serious crimes. In February this year one call handler received a commendation after her actions helped save a young woman's life. The handler answered a 999 call from a 19-year- old woman who was not speaking directly into the phone, making it hard to hear her. The call handler could tell from experience this was not an accidental call and by listening carefully was able to establish the woman's location. Officers arrived within minutes to find the caller had stopped breathing. They were able to resuscitate her and stayed with her until paramedics arrived. Contact centre supervisor Tony Abbot has been working with Surrey Police for 13 years. He said: "It's a very challenging role because you literally never know what the next call will be. There is definitely no such thing as a typical day. "Sometimes there are occasions when the centre is reasonably quiet and then suddenly there is a serious collision on the M25 and we get 40 to 50 calls in the space of a few minutes. "We are very much on the frontline here dealing with members of the public and we only have our voices to calm them down and try and get the information we need. "It can be rewarding work but it's not easy. You have to make a lot of quick decisions and you have to be prepared to deal with anything. The next call could be from someone who has witnessed a robbery or it could be from a rape victim." Contact centre manager Stuart Lowe said: "When you dial 999 you are calling for help and our call handlers are absolutely crucial in making sure we are providing the right resources as quickly as possible. They have to be professional and efficient in situations where the caller is often very distressed and they do a fantastic job." Saturday will see emergency call centres up and down the country celebrate the 70th anniversary and Surrey Police is no exception. To mark the occasion Chief Constable Bob Quick will be visiting the contact centre to meet staff and congratulate them on a job well done.
