Sending help right away is the first priority for 911 dispatchers, but sometimes they can't get all the information they need. Local dispatchers are exploring new technology that could keep us all safer.

If you were to call 911 today, dispatchers would know your location, but they wouldn't know your specific location within a house or other building. If you can't move or communicate on your cell phone, the response time could take too long.

Most of us are familiar with the images of a wide-scale emergency, perhaps a shooting at a college campus, like the 2007 massacre at Virginia Tech. On that day 911 dispatchers were flooded with calls from people pleading for help.

But there are plenty of stories we often don't hear about, like a man having a heart attack in a Salt Lake motel and the dispatchers unable to find him.

Vickie Metcalf, a dispatcher with the Salt Lake City Police Department, told us that scenario happened last November. "He couldn't talk. He wouldn't get us any information. He was in extreme pain," she said.

What if things were different? What if dispatchers could know your exact location - your building number, floor number, even your room number?

Bill Harry, the executive director of Valley Emergency Communications Center (VECC), says, "Time is of the essence when you're trying to find someone."

VECC is looking at new technology. A company called WirelessWerx has created software and devices called nodes, which can be installed in a business, a sports complex, even a college campus.

"This sort of technology would completely cut out all of the guess work and investigation that you would have to do in order to find someone's location," Harry said.

The nodes can communicate with cell phones in the area, so that if someone calls 911, dispatchers not only know exactly where that person is but can send text messages with emergency instructions, for example, "Get under your desk, or if they're on the next floor, to maybe get onto the roof, maybe to go out a different exit," Bill McGraw, with WirelessWerx, said.

Dispatchers say there will need to be some equipment changes before the technology can be fully implemented, but they hope to make those changes down the road.

E-mail: wjohnson@ksl.com