Vancouver Police Sgt. Mark Tonner had an interesting column in the February 19th Province newspaper where he expressed concern that Police and other emergency responders often cannot get into a building because of the access control system that requires them to be ‘buzzed’ in. In many systems with elevator floor control, just following someone else in or getting buzzed in by someone else does not help if you cannot get access to the correct floor.
He brought up a recent example of a 911 call where a woman called saying that her husband was hitting her and she was on the 18th floor. When the Police arrived, no one answered the intercom. When the 911 operator called back to the suite, a man answered saying that “She’s fine. So take off.” As Sgt. Tonner relayed, many situations such as this require the Police to break into the lobby and then into the stairwell and then climb 18 floors before breaking in once more into the hallway.
Is the security system in your building working against you (or your neighbours) in this way?
To deal with this issue (among many other benefits… most notably not having to maintain a computer with the access control database onsite), Provident offers remote management of building access control systems as well as CCTV systems. In the event that the Paramedics, Fire or Police need to get into a ‘secured’ building that we manage, we can remotely unlock any doors that they need to get through, control the elevator as well as watch what is happening in real time through the video connection… all from our central monitoring station in Kerrisdale.
Remote management of building access controls has many benefits that serve to increase the level of security in any building, but the ability to remotely allow emergency responders into the building is a major time saver that could play a huge part in saving someones life by getting the Paramedics, Fire or Police in quickly.
Alternatively, we can simply hold an emergency set of keys so that we can respond in an emergency to meet the Paramedics, Police or Fire Department to allow them into the building… or even your front door.
Whether in an apartment or detached home, anytime we receive a medical alarm (from a panic button) we dispatch the Paramedics as well as ourselves to arrive with a key so that all of the physical security you have put in place to keep burglars out does not keep emergency assistance out. Of course, we can only help in this regard if we have a working key.