Teens Launch a Website to Help Emergency Workers Locate Homes

An issue that all emergency service providers are interested in improving is response time. Response time is the amount of time it takes for a patient or person in distress to receive aid from emergency services. Whether it is someone having a medical crisis or a person who is experiencing a burglary, everyone agrees that the quicker help gets to them the better.

However, there are some stumbling blocks that get in the way of the goal of speed. Many times, especially in rural areas, homes are difficult to locate. Enhanced 911 has helped with this problem, but there is always more room for improvement. This is where a 16-year-old from Statesville, North Carolina named Andy Laws comes into the picture.

Andy Laws recognized that there was something that he could do to possibly help emergency service workers get to their destinations quicker. He, along with a group of his peers referred to as the "Street Team" have set out to create a website that will store a database of house photos in the Statesville area. Laws feels that this could assist greatly by allowing the emergency workers to be able to see what the homes look like before they set out to find them. Even Domino's Pizza has shown an interest in the database to assist them in their deliveries.

Rich Meadows, a critical care transport nurse and paramedic in West Virginia, shared his thoughts about this idea, "I think that something like this has a lot of potential. If the databank could be accessed quickly then it could be a monumental help to emergency services in identifying hard-to-locate landmarks. The only drawback that I see would be a possible delay in accessing the site prior to responding to a call. If this problem could be alleviated, then it would certainly speed our response time."