Thanks to the What3Words app Orillia OPP were able to find an injured snowmobiler.
The app is a geocode mapping system that assigns three unique words to 57 trillion squares the app’s developers have designated around the world. The squares are 10 feet by 10 feet, so it makes it easier for responders to find the missing or injured person.
Just before 5 PM on January 8th, OPP responded to the call from the snowmobile who had been involved in a crash on Lake Couchiching. Police report the driver didn’t know exactly where the crash happened but was able to use the app to help officers find him. “Staff at the OPP Provincial Communications Centre (PCC) were able to employ What3words by texting a link to the app to the driver, who then used it to pinpoint his location which was encoded by the app into a random set of three words,” OPP Provincial Constable Ted Dongelmans explains. “Those three words were then communicated back to the PCC, from which staff were then able to direct emergency personnel to the collision site. The driver was subsequently located and transported to hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.”
Dongelmans says the app is an example of how the OPP is modernizing its police service with the help of technology.