In Twinsburg, Ohio, an ordinary day at the dispatch center quickly became extraordinary when a faint voice and an open phone line tested the instincts and persistence of two veteran dispatchers. Thanks to their training, determination, and the life-saving data delivered through RapidSOS, a woman in severe medical distress was located and saved in minutes.
Dispatcher Chris Fried, a 22-year veteran of the Twinsburg City Police Department, remembers returning to the communications room and seeing his partner, Patty, deeply focused on a call. It was an open 911 line — filled with faint static, background noise, and what she believed was a whispered plea for help.
“She swore up and down she heard someone say it,” Fried recalls.
From that moment, teamwork and technology kicked in. Patty kept the caller line open, listening intently for any sign of distress, while Fried worked behind the scenes. As the call populated in the RapidSOS platform, the system displayed a green radius circle placing the caller in a Giant Eagle shopping plaza. Within seconds, the location data began to narrow, pinpointing an alleyway between two buildings.
Cross-referencing the data through Ohio’s vehicle registry, Fried identified her car — a Honda Civic — and relayed the information to the responding officer.
As the officer pulled into the plaza, Fried guided him: “You’re looking for a Honda Civic, older model, parked between two buildings.” Moments later, the officer radioed back: “I’m with the vehicle. Send me squad, send me additional officers, and bring the AED.”
The woman had suffered a medical emergency that left her unresponsive and unable to speak. A bystander rushed to assist as officers pulled her from the car and began CPR until EMS arrived. Within minutes, she was transported to the hospital — alive.
Afterward, officers, supervisors, and the woman’s family all echoed the same message:
“This was the perfect example of how the tech is supposed to work,” Fried explains. “It told us where to go, who we were looking for, and what we needed to know. The rest was persistence and teamwork.”
The call also highlighted the critical value of Emergency Health Profiles. By taking just a few minutes to enter her medical conditions and emergency contacts into her phone, the woman gave dispatchers and first responders information they could act on immediately.
“She wasn’t able to talk, but her phone talked for her,” Fried says. “That health profile gave us her medical background, her vehicle, even her kids’ phone numbers. We could keep the family updated instead of leaving them in the dark.”
The lesson, Fried believes, is clear:
For Fried and Patty, the incident was a reminder of both the power of human instinct and the value of technology designed for life-saving moments. “RapidSOS eliminates the guesswork,” Fried reflects. “It narrows the search, gives us names, gives us context. Without it, we would have been searching blind. With it, we were able to send the officer straight to her car and save her life.”