A rescue powered by telecommunicator intuition and radius mapping

Bordered by the largest contiguous Ponderosa pine forest in the world, and perched on the edge of the Colorado Plateau, Payson (AZ) is home to just over 16,000 residents who comprise a tight-knit community of adventure-seekers and outdoorspeople.

Payson’s natural beauty, however, also poses hidden risks. With rugged terrain and temperatures that drop to as little as 20 degrees overnight, even experienced hikers can become disoriented in the remote landscape very quickly.

Around five years ago, to protect both locals and the many visitors drawn to the mountains, Payson PD invested in the Motorola Solutions Radius Mapping platform. This solution integrates with the agency’s existing emergency call-handling solution to present a unified, real-time view of key location information pertaining to a 911 call – including highly accurate data pulled straight from a caller’s Android or iOS cellphone – so first responders can arrive on-scene more quickly. 

The life-saving nature of this location data was highlighted for Payson PD recently when they were tasked with finding a missing elderly gentleman in their jurisdiction. Josh, a dispatcher for Payson, was on shift at the time: “The incident started when the gentleman, who had left his house in Phoenix for a milkshake a few hours earlier, did not return as expected. Understandably, his family became concerned – they discovered that he had been seen at a hospital in Payson a few hours prior, and was released from the hospital against medical advice.” The family called 911, and the PSAP in Payson immediately classified him as an endangered missing person.

However, their initial attempt to locate the man, using the phone pings from his carrier, returned a tower location near Williams, Arizona – several hours away, with a potential search area of 4,000 feet. Josh explains that while they started coordinating with the agencies in that area, he received an unexpected call from an agency on the other side of the country. “The missing gentleman believed he was in Rhode Island, and called the police department there directly on their non-emergency line. Luckily, he was responsive to instructions, and the department requested that he call 911 directly instead. As soon as he did, the dispatcher in Williams received the call – but the phone was still pinging on the Williams tower, which wasn’t enough information to find him.”

Fortunately, Radius Mapping managed to display the location much more accurately and picked up a coordinate with just a 6-meter radius in a neighboring county. Josh immediately contacted the agency in that county, and they sent out a deputy who located the elderly man quickly. Josh emphasizes, “This gentleman had several medical conditions which required daily medication, and the area he was in can drop to less than 20 degrees overnight. I do believe that, had we not been able to locate him with those coordinates, the outcome would have been tragic.”

This incident underscores the importance of both technology and human judgment in public safety. While Radius managed to drastically narrow down the search area from multiple miles to just a few feet, it was Josh's quick thinking to contact the neighboring agency, which ultimately gave this story a happy ending.

Picture photographed by Richard N Horne