Northern Ireland Hearing Impaired Reach Emergency Services Via Wireless Phones

From the CTIA NewsWire: "A new text messaging service, developed by the Northern Ireland police in partnership with the Deaf Association of Northern Ireland and British Telecom, allows hearing impaired individuals to use their wireless phones to text the police in the event of an emergency, who in turn will contact the relevant emergency services - police, ambulance and fire and rescue. The service was created for people in the deaf and signing community who in the past may have found it difficult to communicate with the police and other emergency services. (Source: BBC News)"

This is one of those "well duh this makes total sense" innovations in the class of "why didn't I think of this". Hearing impaired individuals may have a hard time placing phone calls, but they can certainly read and text. Neat...