Enhanced 9-1-1

In an emergency, please call 9-1-1.   Often, residents call the Bourne Fire / Rescue & Emergency Services 7 digit business phone number to report an emergency.  Unfortunately, many times during the course of a typical day there are no firefighters in the station to answer the phone, because they are out on emergency calls.  As a result, these calls on the seven digit business line go unanswered.  Calling 9-1-1 is the only way to ensure that there will always be someone to receive your emergency call. 

When you call 9-1-1 from any landline phone within the Town of Bourne (not a cellular phone) it will be answered at Bourne’s Public Safety Answering Point (PSAP), which is at the Bourne Police Station and your address is automatically displayed on the 9-1-1 computer screen.

When you call 9-1-1 in Bourne, the Police Department dispatcher will ask if you have a police, fire or medical emergency?  If you say fire or medical, you are transferred to the Barnstable County Sheriff’s Department Communication Center in Barnstable.  All Bourne Fire / Rescue & Emergency Services dispatching is done by the Barnstable County Sheriff’s Department Communication’s Center.  These dispatchers obtain all the necessary information from the caller and dispatch the appropriate Bourne Fire / Rescue & Emergency Services personnel and apparatus. 

If you call 9-1-1, please try to answer all the dispatcher’s questions and do not hang up until the dispatcher tells you to.  Be advised that the dispatchers at the Sheriff’s Department are all trained to provide medical instructions and first aid to assist you in tending to a sick or injured person until Bourne Fire / Rescue & Emergency Services arrives.

If you call 9-1-1 on a cellular phone, these calls are answered at the State Police Barracks in Middleboro and/or  Framingham.  Some cellular phones have the capabilities to provide your location, but not all.  If you call 9-1-1 from your cellular phone to report an emergency, be prepared to provide your address or location.  It is expected that by January 2008 the technology will be in place and all personal cellular phones will have been updated to include GPS technology to ensure that all 9-1-1 cellular phone call locations can be determined. 

Link to Barnstable County Sheriff’s Department Communication Center