Kristen Ballard
palmettoreport@gmail.com

(Rock Hill, S.C.) – There are a total of 90 emergency call boxes on the Winthrop University campus and many students have wondered how reliable they are, because there is some misconception where some students believe that most of the call boxes don’t work.

“I’ve heard a lot of people say that they’re broken and they don’t work and I don’t know if that’s true or not, but they put new ones in place, so I’m hoping they work,” said Brooklyn Clive, a Winthrop commuter student.

However, of the 90 call boxes, only three of them are currently not working, according to Charles Yearta, the chief of Campus Police.

“The university is in a three-phase project to first identify the ones that can’t be fixed and then replacing those that can’t be fixed with brand new ones,” Yearta said.

He said the call boxes are tested once a month by the IT department and if they aren’t working, then the box is checked by another person in the IT department to see why it’s not working.

“It’s kind of a three-prong approach, the police department answers the calls (and) dispatches officers, facilities takes care of the actual infrastructure, IT takes care of the internal workings so to speak,” said Yearta.

Recently, the university has replaced 10 of the call boxes.

However, most of the call boxes haven’b been used in years, as there have been only about three students who used the emergency phones in the past few years, Yearta said.

“I mean I’ve never heard of anyone having to use it, at least since I’ve been here,” said Piper Jones, a student who lives on campus. “I think they are helpful. I think we may could use a few more of them placed around campus. I can only think of like one or two like that I know exactly where they are.”

There are currently call boxes in some of the most used places on campus, including parking lots, elevators and on the sides of some buildings.

The boxes are “extensions of phones” and calls are prioritized depending on the situation, Yearta said.

“If someone hits an emergency phone, assuming that we can’t talk to them on the other end, like nobody is on the other end, then that takes a higher priority than somebody who may be on the phone, but what they have going on is something that can be delayed for a second,” he said.

Additionally, the LiveSafe app has become a more common communication tool for students to use when they need help.

“We have that LiveSafe app. A lot of people do not use the emergency phone boxes anymore, because they have cell phones, which is fine, as long as you can get in touch with us, that’s all we care about,” said Yearta.

Regardless, of how often the emergency call boxes are used, the university plans to keep all of them in working order.