LAS VEGAS (FOX5) — Henderson is going high-tech to help save lives.
It’s installed a system at every intersection in the city to help first responders get to emergencies faster, making sure intersections are clear before they get there.
FOX5 saw it in action while reporting on another story and is getting answers about it.
“Emergency vehicle approaching. Clear intersection immediately,” an audio alert demands.
It is broadcast through speakers at an intersection well before an emergency vehicles’ flashing lights can be seen or its siren heard. FOX5 heard it while reporting out on Boulder Highway and Warm Springs and about five seconds later, could see an emergency vehicle approaching.
“Once we’re in the engine and all the crew is in seat belted, we’ll hit this emergency master button. That turns on the GPS emitter… as we start approaching intersections, it’s realizing that we’re in route and so it’ll start turning those lights green for us,” explained Richard Johnson, Deputy Chief of Support with the Henderson Fire Department.
The GPS Opticom system also triggers the audio alert giving pedestrians time to get out of the road if they’re crossing and turns the light green well before fire trucks get there to clear out traffic that may be in their way.
“You can literally see the lights stack up green for you and so, you know, you’re going to be able to keep driving without hitting red lights or hitting traffic. The old days where we used to have to stop and wait for the signal to catch our flashing emitter and then the traffic to clear out, that would be 15-30 seconds every intersection. So, it really hampered our response times. Now we don’t have that problem anymore,” Johnson revealed.
“Do you think that ultimately saves lives?,” questioned FOX5’s Kim Passoth.
“One hundred percent… Like a cardiac arrest survivability, every minute matters. You lose about 10 percent, 10% of survivability. So, if we can shave off one or two minutes, that’s 10 to 20% better chance for the patient that we’re responding to,” Johnson contended.
The GPS alert system is customized to each intersection as some large intersection take a long time for pedestrians to cross. Typically, it’s triggered from about 1,000 feet away.
Henderson started using the GPS technology a few years ago but since other areas of the Vegas Valley still rely on their flashing lights to change signals, Henderson still has that technology in all vehicles as well in case they need to respond to an emergency in a neighboring jurisdiction.
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