The Walk to the Parking Garage: Cell Phone 911 Calls After the Night Shift

It's 11:20 on a Tuesday night, and the shift change is done. A nurse is walking to level four of the parking garage, keys in one hand, phone in the other. Halfway across the deck she hears shouting. A man is blocking a woman's path between two cars, and the woman is backing away.

The nurse does what anyone would do. She dials 911.

The call goes through, the county 911 center picks up, and an officer is dispatched. That part works. But the hospital's own security team, whose officers are stationed at the ER entrance a few hundred feet away, has no idea the call was ever made.

Why garages and lots are a different kind of risk

Hospital campuses are open around the clock, and the places people feel least protected are often the ones between the front door and the car. Garages and surface lots have a few things in common:

• They are the last stop of a long shift. Staff leave exhausted, often alone, and often after dark.
• They fill with people who don't know the campus. Patients, family members, and visitors circle unfamiliar decks looking for a space.
• They have no hospital phones. There is no wall phone and no nurse's station. The only phone in reach is the one in someone's pocket.
• They are hard to describe. "I'm in the garage" doesn't tell a dispatcher which of three structures, which level, or which stairwell.

That last point matters more than it seems. A caller who is frightened, in an unfamiliar structure, and trying to stay quiet is not going to give a clean location. And the only people who know the difference between the north deck and the visitor deck are the people who work there.

What your hospital phone system can't see

Kari's Law requires multi-line telephone systems to notify someone on site, such as a security desk, when a phone on that system dials 911. If your hospital runs 9Line Dispatch, that requirement is covered for every desk phone, nursing station phone, and softphone on your system.

A cell phone in a parking garage never touches that system. The call routes from the carrier to the county 911 center, and nothing in the process tells your security team. Your compliance program can be flawless and the garage can still be a blind spot.

For a walk that happens hundreds of times a night, that is a gap worth closing. Our article on how 911 finds a cell phone caller explains why the location a dispatcher receives is also less precise than most people assume.

How 9Line Pinpoint covers the walk to the car

9Line Pinpoint uses geofencing to draw precise virtual boundaries around the places you need to see: each parking structure, each surface lot, the walkways and plazas between them, and the entrances to the main building. When anyone dials 911 from a cell phone inside one of those zones, Pinpoint alerts your on-site safety team immediately, with the caller's location.

• No app for anyone to open. The caller dials 911 on their own phone, Apple or Android. Staff, patients, and visitors are all covered without registering for anything.
• Outdoor and indoor in one product. The same service that covers a garage deck covers the lobby, the corridors, and the departments inside the building.
• Location that includes height. Alerts carry the caller's coordinates in three dimensions, including altitude, so your officers know whether the call came from the ground level or level four of a six-level deck.
• A direct line to the dispatcher. Pinpoint sends your security team's contact information to the 911 center, so the dispatcher handling the call can reach the people who are already on site.

The county still dispatches help, exactly as before. The difference is that your officers find out at the same moment the dispatcher does.

Back to level four

Run the same night again with Pinpoint in place. The nurse dials 911 from level four. The county gets the call. At the same moment, your security team gets an alert showing the garage and the caller's location, including the level. An officer at the ER entrance is walking toward the deck before the first patrol car has turned onto the campus road.

Nobody had to download an app, and nobody had to remember a number other than the one they already knew.

Questions for your next security review

• If a staff member dials 911 from the parking garage tonight, how will our team find out?
• Does every structure and lot on our campus, including leased and overflow parking, fall inside a coverage zone?
• If we only learn about these calls from the county or from a radio call, how much time are we giving up?
• Do our incident reports include 911 calls made from personal phones on our property?

Frequently asked questions

Why are hospital parking garages a blind spot for 911 calls?

Hospital parking garages and lots have no hospital phones, so nearly every 911 call from them is made on a cell phone. Cell phone 911 calls route from the carrier to the county 911 center, and nothing tells the hospital's own security team that the call happened.

Does Kari's Law cover 911 calls made from a hospital parking lot?

Kari's Law applies to multi-line telephone systems, such as the hospital's desk phones and softphones, and requires notification to an on-site location when they dial 911. It does not apply to calls made from personal cell phones, including those made from a garage or lot.

How does 9Line Pinpoint alert hospital security about a call from a parking garage?

9Line Pinpoint draws geofences around parking structures, lots, walkways, and building entrances. When anyone dials 911 from a cell phone inside one of those zones, Pinpoint alerts the on-site safety team with the caller's location, including altitude, and sends the security team's contact information to the 911 center.

Does a staff member or visitor need to install anything for Pinpoint to work?

No. 9Line Pinpoint works with the phone's native 911 dialing on both Apple and Android, so nothing needs to be installed, registered, or remembered.

Cover the walk to the car

Your staff already trust that someone is looking out for them between the unit and the garage. Let's look at your structures, lots, and walkways together and show you what Pinpoint coverage would look like on your campus.

Schedule a Pinpoint demo or email [email protected].