Australia's firefighters are apparently a bit worried about the future of emergency services, after rescuing two girls trapped in a storm drain who turned only to Facebook to ask for help.

Link:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17939_109-10347498-2.html?tag=nl.e776

Well... At the tender age of 10 and 12 one should nonetheless be able to make the distinction between what's real (getting stuck in a drain) and what's fiction (a.k.a. Facebook).

Obviously the girls were intelligent enough to initate an effort through Facebook. Hopefully they've learned dialing an emergency call directly tends to work better if you have that option. It's probably easier to do than using Facebook anyway.

And one would think something like this could only happen in comedy series . http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1EBfxjSFAxQ

Unless they couldn't get a signal good enough for voice, but could still text. Being trapped in a drain, I'm surprised they had any signal.

As far as I know, if you can't do vox, you can't do facebook.

I'm not sure which amazes more- that someone on facebook actually called, or that dispatch believed it. I wouldn't have. Please, someone, tell me they have a lot of "special learning challanges", I can't say how much my mind boggles at the idea of "don't call 911, but post it on facebook".

I have less sympanthy and pity than normal. Yes, they are little kids. But if their parents let them have a cell, then the parent's should have taught them the RIGHT way to get help.

y...a...w...n...

The girls didn't fall into the storm drain, they walked into the storm drain, exploring, and didn't have the brains to leave a trail of bread crumbs.

Leave them there until they call 000. Or just leave them there until the next storm washes them out.

If they only had their mandated gear for venturing in storm drains! *Snicker*

A teenager in the NYC area fell into an open manhole about a month ago. She was texting at the time. It was reported though that the maintenance crew opened the manhole, and then went back to the truck for safety stuff. I'm gathering they'll be doing it in the reverse order next time.

Facebook sounds like a success in this case.
I find it hard to argue against something that worked, no matter how unlikely of a solution it was.
The girls are not in the drain system anymore and there was no door to door search nor was anybody charged with anything as a result of them disappearing.


There was a case mentioned on here a while ago about some young man who dialed their equivalent of 911 there and he died because they ignored him.

Edit.
I don't think that facebook should be a first choice and it certainly should not have been the only choice.

Edit 2
Of course it goes without saying that they should not have gone into the storm drains to start with, but they are kids and there was a way for them to get in.

Texting uses smaller packets of data, and often works when voice does not. It's been suggested that you use texting when cell lines are overloaded after an emergency (i.e. 9/11) for this very reason, as the texts are more likely to reach the intended recipient. Also, text messages are stored on the recipient's phone, whereas most voicemails have to be accessed by calling into a voicemail box, which would be hard to do if 20 million people are trying to call their kids/parents etc. after a disaster for example.

So, for all we know the kids tried to call, but were unable to do so and used their noggins to text their facebook pages... regardless, it worked and that's all that matters.

Yes, text uses less bandwidth than vox, but web access uses even more. Unless you can just text directly to facebook.

I'll be frank- I don't text. I tried to find a phone plan that doesn't even have the capability. I don't use facebook, which I consider the land of kids and pervs and makes youtube look like a classy place. So maybe there is a leap of logic here that I'm missing.

But I still think that the kids should be spanked, and the parents put in the stocks.

I also do not text, but I do use my cell (Blackberry) to retrieve email when away from my laptop. I've only sent a couple emails from the cell, but once typed they were on the street quickly. That said, for an emergency, I would still need for someone to open the email and then do the right thing. Perhaps the email could tell them what to do. . . like call 9-1-1.

My Blackberry has GPS, would pinging it get a location?

My $10 says that they were trying to avoid getting in trouble by getting help from their friends instead of calling 000. This is typical of kids.

You can, according to http://www.facebook.com/mobile/ :

Facebook Mobile Texts

• Update your status or send messages to friends using texts from your mobile.

I don't much either, but I think not having the capability is foolish, for the reason given earlier: text often gets through when voice doesn't. They use a different system, based on store-and-forward, that can exploit brief moments of signal.

I wonder if the little twits tried to contact 000 via text?

But I think Thseng was probably correct. Like they thought some other 10-yr-old would be able to track them down and get them out.

Dogs are SO much simpler! And they don't crayon on the walls.

Yea, but dogs lack the capability of higher reasoning

and they don't have thumbs to hold a cell phone . . .

That's not necessarily the case with SMS (text) messages and I would myself give SMS a try even if voice didn't work. That might not even be true with data on all networks.


There have been various oddball cases of this sort for three decades now, long enough for dispatchers to realize it might be real - someone on IRC having a heart attack or whatever and a call being made to the police department from another continent.

As far as a facebook friend alerting police, that's not surprising at all. That's the real world to kids, and they might be shocked at the thought that an old guy like me might see the note and *not* call 911.


Dealing with kids is often a matter of overcoming many "special learning challenges", sometimes theirs, sometimes yours. I grew up in the pre-Internet and pre-cellphone Darkness and there are a lot cases like this where I am reminded that the "generation gap" is very real.


The parents are likely as surprised as everyone else. The kids may know of the Australian 911 but used Facebook because that's what they always do - you don't call someone and talk when you want to tell them something: you text them or post a Facebook comment!

A lot of kids these days don't ever *talk* on cell-phones. I work with college-age kids and it's not that unusual to call, ringringring voicemail, then text and get an instant reply.

The whole thing is amusing but makes a very real point for anyone attempting to teach kids about this stuff: they really are growing up in a very different world than we did and you have to understand their world if you want to teach them to do things the "right" way, since your predicate life assumptions aren't the same as theirs.

"Yea, but dogs lack the capability of higher reasoning"

From what I see, so do many kids. My dog has put "Find the treat!" together with "Do you want to play ball?", so when I told her to "Find the ball", she started scouring the field for her tennis ball and found it. And I'm sure if someone took her into a sewer drain, she could find her way out.

Dog, 2
Kids, 0

"and they don't have thumbs to hold a cell phone . . ."

YES!!!

I was at a small party the other day, with 2 infant, 2 pregnant ladies, and my non-preggo GF. Lots of cooing going on, and I was about insane.

I agree about dogs. Though someone once said that having a kid is like buying a dog that slowly learns to talk.

I've been chewing that one over for a while.

[quote=MDinana...Though someone once said that having a kid is like buying a dog that slowly learns to talk...[/quote]

I think the distinction is that most kids learn to speak english a little better than most dogs speak english.

First, don't ever let a woman tell you that dogs and babys/kids are similar in any way. That's a huge marginalization. (Stepping off soap box before dragged down and beaten by mob of angry dog owning mothers.)

I was hiking the other day and tested a rumor I had heard about. The rumor: b/c texts use less 'whatever' to get through phone systems you could send a text when you have no service and when the phone picks up enough signal power, the text will be sent.

At least for me, on AT&T, this did not work. I sent a text with no signal, knowing I was only a few minutes away from walking back into coverage. I got a call before I realized I had walked back into zone. After the call I checked my text and it was still unsent.

I don't know if this was my phone or my service or a larger issue.

Lots of variables here, including how your phone handles the situation where it can't send text right away for some reason. And there is some arbitrariness here... Sometimes it will work as you described, sometimes the reverse.


In my experience, in a situation with marginally cell coverage the text will go through when the connection is too bad for any conversations to take place.

I've only experienced overcrowded network a couple of times, so I wouldn't know too much about how that works. I would suppose that text would have a higher probability of coming through. But you must realize you may have to wait a few hours before that happens... I've had several "happy new year, we've just opened the champagne" messages arriving sometime the next day.

"Though someone once said that having a kid is like buying a dog that slowly learns to talk."

Ask the parent of any teenager if that is a plus or a minus.

You can't - but you should be able to.

You can get a text message through with very little signal strength. The phone will generally also keep trying until the message gets through

There have been lots of cases of people lost in mountains being rescued because a text message to friends got through when a voice call couldn't. There was even a case of boat that sunk in the Caribbean who sent a text message to friends in the UK to call the coastguard.

You can also send a txt message if you have a single finger still working.

Don't hold your breath for a quick rescue if you have to get a message relayed.

A woman in Oregon was on the phone with a friend in California when she tripped and fell backwards onto a glass coffee table. She dropped the phone as she fell. She was kind of embedded in the broken table, with the glass sticking into her. She screamed for her friend to call 911, hoping the phone hadn't disconnected when she fell. The friend called 911 in her locale, who seemed to have some difficulty in understanding the situation but finally called the authorities in Oregon, and they sent paramedics to the house. Forty-five very long minutes.

sue

DS=17 y/o
DD=14 y/o

Knowing what I know now, I would not trade them for the world. I just would have waited a little later to get started.

That the dog doesn't speak can often be an asset. Dogs don't find the need to "back-talk" when receiving instruction/correction. Their clothes and toys are cheaper too.....

I text quite often, actually. There are plenty of times when I want to update someone on my whereabouts, eta, change in plans, etc., and I don't want to place a call and leave a voicemail message should they not answer... I know that they will get the text (almost always) and can review it more discreetly than calling voicemail. You can also send but one text to many different recipients, which is very difficult to do with voicemail, if not impossible on most plans.

Plus, ask yourself this question: aren't there times when you want to send a message to someone but would rather not actually talk to them over the phone, or negotiate with their voicemail?

Texting is also much cheaper than using your minutes. I get something like 250 texts/month for $5, and pay for the minimum monthly plan of 500 shared minutes.

I also refuse to text while driving, unlike some crazy people I see on the road these days.

Another advantage of texting is when you want to communicate some specific type of information which needs to be transfered and stored without any errors: phone numbers, account numbers, coordinates, web links, names and specifications of various devices etc. In addition to eliminating errors caused by mishearing, the message is automatically stored and the receiver doesn´t have to quickly search for paper and pen (which not everybody carries anyway) to write it down.

Well, I'll say that third party calls to 911 are not unheard of . Been to many myself. Out of state friends/family can't reach a sick person, they call their 911 who calls our 911 .

Hell i've been to fires called in from other states. Look in the past smoke signals were state of the art, times are a changing folks . I can look at facebook right now and see what any number of my kids friends are doing AT THIS VERY MOMENT.

Bottom line it worked. Would i hope my kids call 911 ? sure ! If no signal would i hope they have the knowledge and skills to come up with another form of getting help like these kids did ?

You bet .

Years ago my dept. did not like it that FF started to carry cell phones on the job. Then during a highrise fire a LT. found that his radio would not work in the building. He got out his cell called 911 gave them a report,for them to give to the Batt. chief. Fuuny but their view of guys carring cells changed. Welcome to the '90's .

OMG...like, me and Jennifer,my BFF, are totally trapped in a drain!!

Lol... more like: OMG...lk me&Jen, BFF, r totly trapd ina drain!

These gals may have come up with a new list of status changes for Facebook.

1. Trapped in a drain
2. Fending off a zombie attack
3. Abducted by aliens
4. Messing with Bigfoot (those commercials always make me chuckle)

They have totally eliminated the need for emergency services with just a few keystrokes. *rolls eyes*

I'm done