The tech helping emergency responders save lives in the pandemic

The tech helping emergency responders save lives in the pandemic

Mary-Kate Smith was ดาวน์โหลดslotxo out kayaking off the coast of Connecticut last August when she overturned.

"I was very scared, didn't know what to do, or where to go," she says.

Only four months earlier another kayaker had drowned in the same area. That incident had alarmed the mayor of coastal city Stamford, who asked the local emergency services to look at new safety technologies.

Carbyne, a cloud-based emergency communication platform, was installed in August. It enables a 911 dispatcher to send a text message to the caller. This includes a link, which once opened starts a video chat.

Just a few hours after it went live Ms Smith had her accident in Long Island Sound, and the system was put to the test for the first time.

"There weren't any boats going by [but] I was able to show with my phone where I was," she says.

From the video call, 911 dispatcher AJ Minichino saw that Ms Smith had badly injured her leg. Her kayak was sinking, but she had been able to free herself and make it to a nearby rock and use her mobile.

The Carbyne system also provided Ms Smith's exact GPS co-ordinates, so Mr Minichino was able to get a rescue boat out to her "in a matter of seconds".

"I feel like if we didn't know where she was, we would have been searching around for a while," says Mr Minichino.

Carbyne is an Israeli company, and one of many technology firms around the world that have helped emergency services and health authorities during the pandemic.

Founded in 2016 by Amir Elichai, he came up with the idea after he was robbed on a beach.