Speaking on the eve of the 911 Emergency Communications Centre's tenth anniversary, Manager Juliette Gooding said that residents need to play their part to make the system work well.

"You call 911 if it is a real emergency and that means there is an immediate threat to life or property," she explained.

"A lot of times people call 911 because they're stuck in traffic on the West Bay Road for the last half an hour and they want to know if there's an accident."

Ms Gooding said these non-emergency calls are unfair to those who might really need the 911 service.

"When they call 911 for things like that, although we try to be reasonable with people and try and answer all their questions, they are really tying up an emergency line," she said.

She noted that there are laws to deal with people who abuse the system, saying, "Don't call us for nonsense."

"We are hoping that people understand that an emergency is really an immediate threat to life or property."

According to the Emergency Communications Centre official, people who are really unsure should still call 911.

"If you think it's an emergency and really don't know, call and we can tell you who you need to call if it doesn't belong to us," she said.

Ms Gooding acknowledged that there is a "thin line" between what is urgent and important to a caller as it pertains to an emergency.

She said sometimes people are having distressing moments but they may not always constitute an emergency.

One major concern for the organisation is the difficulty in extracting the information from callers in a timely and reliable manner.

The official explained what someone should do when the operator answers: "911 what's your emergency?"

"What we're hoping that people will learn to do is when they hear that question, you tell us what's happening," Ms Gooding said.

"Essentially, we're hoping that people will reach a point where they don't waste time by giving us the history or background of what happened yesterday, we want to know what's happening now."

The operator, she said, will ask a series of questions, which to some people don't make sense but to emergency personnel they are crucial.

"What we want the public to know is that they're painting a picture for us and we're painting that picture for who is responding," she said.

The right agency or agencies will be dispatched after determining whether the assignment requires the police, ambulance or fire or all the services.

"While we're dispatching them we're on the phone with the caller, in some cases, depending on the nature of the emergency. We will remain on the line until the responding units get there."

The Emergency Communications Centre aims to send out an ambulance within the first minute of a call, she said.

Ms Gooding said that her 18-member staff is trained to serve callers who are agitated or distressed for whatever reason.

"Our training helps us to put ourselves in that place to understand why people behave the way that they do," she said.

"If I call 911 and my only son is in an emergency situation and it's a matter of life and death, chances are I'm going to be irrational.

"I'm going to be unreasonable, upset and helpless so I want somebody to be there in an instance."

Even callers acting on behalf of loved ones could offer a challenge to the 911 operators, according to Ms Gooding.

She said they do get angry when the operators asked important questions about the emergency that they are reporting.

"Most callers who have somebody close to them in a situation like that, they really do get very angry when they feel you're asking too many questions," she said.

"Even when you try and reassure them that help is on the way they don't hear that and that caller may be the lifesaver for the patient or the victim.

"If they're not listening it will be very difficult to give them information and they will miss vital information."

Ms Gooding urged callers to assist the emergency personnel with current and adequate information so as to give the patient or victim a chance at survival.