Some 1,125,500 persons have downloaded the 112BE mobile app in the past five years, Belgium’s General Directorate for Civil Safety said on Friday on the occasion of European Emergency Number 112 Day.
The authorities recalled the importance of the emergency number, which helps save lives throughout the European Union, Belga news agency reported.
The 112BE app enables emergency services to locate persons in danger and makes it easier to determine the type of help to send them.
The app, which has been in use since 2017, also enables operators to consult essential medical information, such as heart problems, allergies, epilepsy risk, of the person at risk. This data is filled in when the app is installed, and then transmitted to the emergency services, the General Directorate for Civil Safety explained in a press release. The app also has a written-messaging function that can be activated if persons at risk have difficulty making themselves understood orally.
Further, it provides an alternative to the menu of options to which callers are redirected when they dial the 112 or 101 number. It offers the possibility of directly selecting the icon for the centre corresponding to the type of problem being experienced, whether it is an aggression, a medical issue or another type of emergency.
“Each year, the 112 and 101 emergency centres receive over 50,000 calls through the 112BE app,” the General Directorate for Civil Safety said. “We would like to do even better by encouraging every Belgian to download it.”
Over 650 operators respond to emergency calls around the clock in Belgium. The emergency services stress the importance of providing as much information as possible so as to give the precise location of the incident in question, Belga reported.
