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American service members are accustomed to dialing 9-1-1 in the case of an emergency in the U.S. But, have you ever wondered why there is a different set of digits in Germany and in most European countries?
Ute Steiger of Winnenden, near Stuttgart, experienced a tragic day in her life, when her 9-year old son, Björn, was hit by a car in 1969. At that time, it took the ambulance almost an hour to arrive on the scene and the boy died on the way to the hospital.
This inspired Steiger to write thousands of letters to German politicians to implement general emergency numbers 1-1-0 and 1-1-2 and was finally successful in 1973. She and her husband, Siegfried also established the Björn Steiger Foundation, which dedicated itself to establishing emergency pillars, mainly found along German autobahns, and the implementation of air rescue with helicopters. Steiger recently passed away at 88 years of age and her efforts have been instrumental in enhancing rescue capabilities in emergency situations for almost 40 years.
The Integrierte Leitstelle ILS Kaiserslautern (integrated control center) is located along B37 enroute to downtown Kaiserslautern. It is responsible for the fire department, rescue services, disaster response and medical transportation for large parts of the Westpfalz region.
The center services 1-1-2-calls from three counties (Kaiserslautern, Kusel and Donnersberg) and the City of Kaiserslautern with approximately 415,000 inhabitants in an area of 2,000 square kilometers. The ILS alarms, leads and supports an average of 270 operations daily. Some staff members speak English and all are regularly trained to remain up to date with current procedures.
In addition, a Mutual Assistance Agreement and an Alarm and Response Plan was developed after the Flugtag Disaster in 1988. Depending on the type of contingency, the ARP clearly lays out the responsibilities of host nation key players and provides need-to-know information flow to German leaders at local and state level and establishes the connection between U.S. leadership and local decision makers.
The ILS also aims to keep close ties with Air Force and Army response agencies within the KMC and joint table top and hands-on exercises take place on a regular basis.
Did you know that calls to 1-1-0 or 1-1-2 do not even require a SIM card in a cellular phone? Most phones are automatically programmed with emergency numbers depending on the country in which you are located and can also be dialed from public phones without cost.
