x
Breaking News
More () »

Can rescuers track your location from a cell phone call?

A question family members of two deceased 19-year-olds are asking: If a call was made to 911 asking for help, why did it take so long to find them?

A tragic mystery at this point.

Two women, driving in Chaska early Saturday morning, call 911 asking for help, according to family.

Hours later, a car and two bodies are found in a pond off the main drag.

Chaska police said late Monday afternoon that the bodies were the two young women reported missing. The medical examiner ruled the deaths accidental drownings.

A question family members are asking: If a call was made to 911 asking for help, why did it take so long to find them?

With smartphones today – you can see an Uber driver pull right up next you. The phone will remember where you parked at a store lot. Or give you driving directions down to the feet of your location.

But, when it comes to 911 calls, mobile phones can miss the mark at the worst times.

A classic case: a Georgia woman calls 911 as her car goes into a lake. But 911 dispatch can not locate her.

Another famous case, the 911 call from Prince's house, the night he died.

The dispatcher tells the caller "OK, your cell phone's not going to tell me where you are at, so I need you to find me an address."

Flash forward to Saturday, about 3 a.m., family says phone records show 19-year-olds Bushra Abdi and Zeynab "Hapsa" Abdalla called 911 for help. Police have not told KARE 11 what was said in that call.

According to Chaska Police Chief Scott Knight, the car wasn't found in a pond until 5:30 p.m. the next day, some 38 hours after the alleged 911 call.

Chaska police have not responded to multiple requests for answers on this topic.

According to the national emergency number system, an estimated 240 million calls are made to 911 in the U.S. each year. In many areas, 80 percent or more are from wireless devices.

You'd suspect that means help knows exactly where you are, but the technology has not caught up yet.

According to Hennepin County Sheriff Rich Stanek, if a cell phone calls 911, dispatch at best gets longitude and latitude coordinates of your approximate location.

But with a weak signal, dispatchers might not even get that.

"Sometimes that's 50 plus meters to several hundred meters off," Stanek said. "When we are in a rural part of the county that's not so bad, but when you are in an urban environment – that's not so good."

According to the Minnesota Department of Public Safety, technology exists to vastly improve 911 call locations. Last December, the state rolled out the ability to text 911.

But to get 911 to work as well as Uber, could take several years to implement.

Before You Leave, Check This Out