OHP Retires *55 Assistance Number, Becomes Secondary 911 Public Service Answering Point

The Oklahoma Highway Patrol says they will now be able to respond to calls faster and help people better, thanks to an upgrade to their phone system.

OHP is now a secondary 911 Public Service Answering Point.

OHP says the majority of their 911 calls are transferred to them from other agencies and before, they didn't have any information about where that person was or what they needed, but now all that's different.

"When you call 911, it will go to your nearest police department or sheriff's office, they are primary PSAP, as a secondary they can transfer the calls to us, we don't answer them directly," says Captain Kerri Mankey.

Captain Kerri Mankey says before calls would be transferred to OHP, but they wouldn't get any of the information the person originally told to 911.

"No location, no phone number, the way it works now is when they transfer that call to us we're going to get that person's phone number and we're going to get their location and their coordinates," she said.

She says even if someone can't tell them exactly what's wrong, they'll have the location, and they can go ahead and send the help that way.

"We have a lot of people, especially being an interstate, we have a lot of people from out of state that don't know where they are, or they've been in an accident, they are injured and can't tell us where they care," she said.

She says overall this will help troopers get to people much faster.

"If you do call 911, just ask for Highway Patrol, they'll transfer you immediately, and we will take it from there and get you the help you need," she said.

*55 is no longer the number to call for help if you have an emergency on the highway, instead, to get O-H-P, just call 9-1-1.