I am saddened that even today, many well intentioned safety messages continue to perpetuate the old colonial idea that 999 is THE number to ring in an emergency.
The history of this number dates back to a house fire in London in 1935 and the solution that was put into place by the main telephone engineering provider, Cable & Wireless. They spun it out through their subsidiaries largely in countries where we remained the colonial power (Bahrain, Kenya, and so on).
The rest of the world did not follow suit. In 1976, a part of the European infrastructure (not directly the EU as some right wingers would like us to believe) proposed a pan-European consistent number. They did so because increasingly people were travelling across borders and there were incidents in which people tried calling the wrong number. The number was chosen very carefully to minimise the risk of inadvertent triggering and mischief calls. In 1992, it did become part of EU policy, though by then it had been enabled on all Europe-based networks. It soon spread across much of the rest of the world.
With GSM phones (mobiles to you and I) this number is embedded in the software so that you can pick up any mobile and dial 112 without having to enter a PIN, smile inanely, or wiggle a digit in the direction of its sensitive parts. Despite the best efforts of the Brexiteers, in 2023, 52% of the British population travelled abroad at least once in the year. This number is constantly rising, and especially among the younger generations. Therefore, continuing to promote life saving and water safety messages with a 999 number instead of 112 is not only an aspect of colonialisation but also potentially life threatening today and into the future. We have to stop even suggesting to young people that 999 is an option and embed in their heads that 112 is THE number to ring.
PLEASE let’s eradicate it from safety and related literature NOW!
There are loads of resources out there to understand this better. www.eena.org to start with.