If you've ever had to call 911,
you know how nerve-racking it can be.
But imagine a world where you can get fire,
police, or medical assistance
through an app instead of a phone call.
That is exactly what Rescu aims to do.
Rescu is an app headed by Paolo Piscatelli
that allows you to preload
important information for dispatchers,
saving you and those first responders
precious time in a critical situation.
I sat down with Paolo to learn more about the app,
how it works, and what's next for the company.
Paolo and his family have been in the emergency dispatch biz
for almost five decades.
Relationships that we've built for 49 years,
and being in business and being in private dispatch
with the public safety and first responders
is really what the public and our subscribers get to enjoy.
But even someone who knows the emergency industry so well
isn't immune to emergencies themselves.
After a medical scare with his father
and a long wait for an ambulance ride,
Paolo got an idea.
I actually grew up in the public safety and dispatch
and private security business,
a family-run business, for 49 years this year.
About, around 2015, 2016, about five, six years ago,
my dad had a medical emergency,
and he had a diverticulitis attack,
and he called 911.
And to his surprise,
it took a lot longer than it should have.
It took from the time that he called
to the time that the ambulance showed up about 45 minutes.
But thanks to that insider knowledge,
Paolo knew how to improve the system
and make getting help easier
and more importantly, faster.
So we created the concept and the idea of Rescu,
where you preload your information, your name,
your address, your contact info,
your family and loved ones' contact information
so, that way, they're notified
instantaneously of an emergency.
And we said, listen,
if you communicate just that information
up front ahead of time,
it saves precious seconds and minutes
in the dispatch process of our first responders.
And the average dispatch time
from time of emergency
to time that the first responders are going with Rescu
is about five minutes or less.
So, what is Rescu, and what does it do?
Basically, for $7 a month,
it's an app that gives you a fast-pass
through the dispatch process.
Without needing to give all that information over the phone
while your emergency is happening,
the police, fire, or EMTs in your area
can get to you faster.
This means you won't have to memorize
your emergency contact's phone number
or address under pressure
or wait 45 minutes to get an ambulance.
When you call through the Rescu app,
your emergency is verified automatically,
because, according to Paolo,
false alarms are a serious problem
in the emergency dispatch world.
The 911 queue is actually abused severely,
and anybody can go on a blog or Google or YouTube
and find this out.
If people aren't getting enough
chicken nuggets in their order
or their Frutista at Taco Bell is the wrong color,
they're calling 911 for that.
And that's a shame to those that have real emergencies
or if your cardiac emergency is tied together
in that same queue.
That's not right.
I know we've seen it in the news a lot last year
with people calling 911 for someone in the park or something
that they didn't think belonged there.
I'm sure they get their share of 911 butt-dials
that people don't even know they're calling 911.
In San Diego County, alone, two years ago,
there was over 12,000 butt-dials.
Oh my gosh (chuckles), wow.
And that's just it,
that's the other side of the coin there, Katherine,
is that we're trying to verify these emergencies
and reduce false alarms
for our first responders and our dispatchers.
So we're really trying to help them out,
because government sector just can't throw money at it.
That's not necessarily how they operate.
We've seen similar services offered through RapidSOS
and security systems with that same program,
but never on a standalone app before.
So, how does it differ from RapidSOS or the classic 911?
Well, Rescu came from the same roots as 911.
Paolo and his family have worked
in emergency dispatch for decades.
So with his knowledge from the industry
and a team of monitoring professionals behind him,
the app is able to provide the same help
to folks across the country.
Listen as Paolo explains how a normal 911 call works
versus when you call with Rescu.
Not everybody's aware of what goes on during the scenes,
but there's a queue,
and there's a finite number of operators.
And they have to go through a triage
and a set of questioning
just depending on the nature of your emergency,
and it can funnel left or funnel right,
just depending on how you answer and what's going on.
So with Rescu, it's just two taps on your phone.
You declare whether it's police, fire, or medical emergency,
and then you tap your location of where you are,
and help is on the way, no questions asked.
If you want to chat with a live dispatcher, you can.
Or if you want to call and add information,
you can, as well. But it's certainly not required.
With 911, it is required that you communicate
your emergency over the phone,
and that could take a really long time when seconds matter.
If you are just 5, 10 seconds
without oxygen to your brain,
that could mean life or death.
To get Rescu off the ground,
Paolo and his team worked with different jurisdictions,
dispatch centers,
and other industry professionals all over the country.
Going through these channels
was crucial to streamline Rescu's experience,
not only for us users,
but for the first responders and dispatchers
moving the calls forward.
Because of all that hard work,
you can now use Rescu in all 50 states.
We're told that every American
will have at least two emergencies in their lives.
So you can bank on having two emergencies
where you'll need first responders.
While most of us probably don't
use 911 on a regular basis,
this shortcut can be a literal lifesaver
for those with chronic illness
and hearing impaired folks
who might not be able to call 911
using the traditional methods.
There's people that are at risk
for strokes or other cardiac type of conditions,
and as well as the hearing impaired and deaf community.
We've actually been pretty surprised
that folks that are deaf
and use ASL and other sign language,
they don't have the same ways and same methods
and same luxuries that we have
to communicate their emergency and their information
during an emergency.
So families, it's been a good run with the Rescu app,
and we're excited about it.
But it's also for everyone.
Even Paolo got a chance to use Rescu remotely
when he sent police to his house in San Diego
from a work trip in Louisville, Kentucky.
I've used Rescu once before.
I developed the product and the software,
but I never had to use it.
A year ago, a little over a year, a year and a half ago,
I was actually in Kentucky for work.
I get a call from my wife,
and she hears a really loud noise.
I check the cameras and say, "Hey, it's probably the wind.
It's probably just the house making noise or whatever."
And then I actually hear a noise
on the other end of the phone.
And her voice just immediately drops.
And it was one of those kinds of panic scenarios.
I'm a 4-hour, 3 1/2 hour flight away,
and I feel powerless.
I hop in my cameras, I don't see anything.
And then the next thing I do is I go into my Rescu app.
I hit "Police" and I hit "Send to My House,"
just outside of San Diego, California.
And within five minutes,
I am looking at my doorbell camera,
and the police are scaling my gate, coming in.
Now, thankfully, it was a false alarm.
It ended up being a critter, ended up being a raccoon
that the police officer ended up seeing.
But the peace of mind of my wife,
knowing that she can take action right away,
or I can take action from afar.
And I was able to send the police from Louisville, Kentucky
to my local responders, El Cajon police, right to my house.
If I were to call 911 in Louisville, Kentucky,
I would have received,
and the other end of the phone
would have been Louisville, Kentucky 911.
And if I told them I needed a police car
to show up at my house in San Diego,
they would've said, "I'm sorry, sir, I can't help you."
And while, currently, you'll need your home address
or any other addresses for Rescu,
there are plans for a GPS-based subscription
that can also work in rural areas and for those traveling.
This also means faster help
for folks who live far away from the nearest hospital,
or even for those who have emergencies while out of town.
At the end of our interview,
I asked Paolo what was next for Rescu,
and here's what he had to say.
There's a lot of exciting things
that we have in development right now,
a lot of integrating pieces,
a lot of wearable and smart-assistant-type releases
that'll be coming out soon.
The only thing I will say at this point,
I'm not at privilege to talk about everything,
but just stay tuned.
We have a big software launch coming up here
in the next few weeks.
And then throughout this year and beginning of next year,
you're gonna see some exciting things.
Currently, the Rescu app is $7 a month
and downloadable on the App Store and Google Play.
We don't have those same tight relationships
with dispatch that Rescu does,
so we might not be able to test it in the near future,
but it certainly seems like a worthy investment.
According to Paolo and his team,
the new and improved Rescu Prime subscription
will be available in October for $99 a year.
We encourage you to check it out
and let us know what you think,
especially if you're a dispatcher or a first responder.
Big thanks to Paolo Piscatelli for sitting down with us,
and thanks to you for watching.
Like and subscribe to catch more from us every week.
Stay safe.
(gentle music)