The Deaf, Hard of Hearing and Speech Impaired living in Ottawa will now be able to Text to 911. This advancement has been made possible through the Ottawa Police Service in cooperation with the City of Ottawa’s Security and Emergency Management Branch.
The first step for members of the DHHSI Community to take is to register their cell phones with their service provider in order to allow this functionality. For many providers, this is an online process. Once registered, the subscriber will have the ability to text their information to the 911 call taker in case of an emergency. The call takers at the other end have also received additional training to make this process a success.
This feature has been in place in Leeds Grenville since April 2015.