Educating children on what to do in the event of an emergency is one of the goals Chilton County’s E-911 is focusing on during the month of April.

Chilton County’s E-911 director Dan Wright said the 911 education month is about many things, but his department has chosen to focus on four specific topics throughout the month. The topics include when to call 911, what to know when calling 911, the technology available to Chilton County 911 and educating children on the use of 911.

Although Wright noted that the number of children calling 911 to report an emergency in Chilton County is often low, it isn’t rare.

Wright referred to the March 26 incident when a Clanton 10-year-old was at home with her 6-year-old sister and found her father having a seizure on the living room floor inside the home. The 10-year-old called 911, reported the incident and was able to communicate with a 911 dispatcher until help could arrive on the scene.

Wright said the incident was a perfect scenario to help others learn the importance of how to act in an emergency type setting.

Wright said it was beneficial that the 10-year-old knew her address, her parents’ names and stayed on the line with the dispatcher during the emergency call.

“Thankfully, we have technology now where children don’t always have to know their address because we can often detect where a call is being made,” Wright said. “It does help for every child to be able to tell a dispatcher during the event of an emergency where they live because if we can get an address, we know exactly where to go.”

According to Wright, children of all ages (that are able to communicate) should be able to tell a 911 dispatcher their telephone number, street address and town they live.

Unfortunately, Wright said a lot of calls made to the dispatch station are prank calls from children ranging in age from 7-13.