‘Everbridge in Action’

DENTON – During the morning hours of October 2, emergency responders were dispatched to a motor vehicle crash involving a rollover. But when they arrived on-scene, the driver was nowhere to be found. 

Since personnel had no indication of the severity of the individuals’ medical status, Caroline County’s Division Chief of Special Operations and Emergency Preparedness Troy Plutchak explained that law enforcement on scene requested “a bloodhound and drone search.” “Emergency management responded with a drone operator from the county IT department,” he said. 

With time of the essence, emergency personnel were able to contact the family of the driver for a description, and “utilized Everbridge to issue a community notification to residents in the surrounding area, asking them to be on the lookout for the missing subject,” Plutschak said. 

Everbridge is Caroline County’s official emergency and critical-event notification system. “Everbridge can send the same alert through multiple channels, such as text messages, phone calls, email, mobile-app notifications, and desktop alerts. Recipients can sometimes acknowledge the message or respond to questions, allowing the organization to see who has received or responded to an alert,” Plutchak explained. The system provides residents in a specific area or the entirety of Caroline County the opportunity to receive notifications about important events in real time, as opposed to relying on the news or social media. Plutchak said it can be used to share important information with the community during severe weather or natural disasters, security threats, evacuations, major traffic disruptions, and other public safety related notices. 

In this case, it led to a success story. 

A county resident who received the Everbridge notification with the description of the missing driver contacted officials just moments after the message was sent. They’d found the individual in their yard, about three miles from the crash site according to Plutchak. “The combination of the drone search request, coordinated response between emergency services and law enforcement, and the timely community notification helped expand the search area and ultimately led to the subject being located,” he added. 

While the patient was not severely injured and was able to leave with family after being tracked down by first responders, Plutchak said the situation could have been very different. “Without Everbridge, it could have taken significantly longer to locate the patient, potentially delaying the response and medical evaluation,” he said. The shortened timeline also saved county resources and, if the individual had been badly hurt, could have saved their life. In a Facebook post from Caroline County’s Department of Emergency Services, officials wrote, “This is a great example of how technology and community partnership can make a real difference in emergency response. One message, one observant citizen, and a successful outcome.” 

Plutchak explained that individual citizens must sign up online at www.carolinemd.org/181/Emergency-Services to receive Everbridge notifications like these. He said that the Department of Emergency Services is constantly reminding people not to wait for an emergency to sign up, as you never know when being informed could make a difference.