horrific car accident or realising that your neighbour's house is on fire.

Dialling the number is the first plan of action in any emergency situation, but many residents do not have a clear understanding of the system that saves several lives every year.

Ch. Insp. Philip Every at the Police Operations Department gave a Royal Gazette reporter a walking tour of the 911 emergency system and explained the "ins and outs'' of how the system works.

"We get an average of 80 to 100 calls in a 24-hour period. But many of the calls are not true emergencies,'' he said.

"And if people call 911 with trivial matters like `what time is the last ferry to Somerset?', then it can tie up emergency services.'' Under the current 911 system -- which the chief inspector said was in the process of being updated -- operators first establish the nature of the call.

If it is a call that requires the help of the Fire Department, Harbour Radio or hospital emergency technicians, the call is conferenced through.

"If it's a matter for Police or of a combined nature -- like a car accident -- then we take down the information at the same time it's being sent through.'' Calls are traced -- and the method used to trace phone calls under the 911 system is also used for tracing hoax calls.

Under the current system, calls are recorded on a Dictaphone reel-to-reel tape recorder, like the kind seen on "911'' television programmes.

But Ch. Insp. Every said Police hoped to be replacing the old system with a "Racal digital tape recorder'' in the near future.

"It's a lot smaller, more flexible, and it's easier to retrieve information,'' he said.

"Calls are recorded because we may want to backtrack to establish what was said.

"We may want to evaluate how we responded, if we had to ask the question `did we call it right'.'' Upcoming improvements to the system includes the implementation of an "Enhanced (E-911) System''.