The 911 emergency dispatcher's voice echoed through the room as he remembered the incident.

"She was in the upstairs apartment of the house and the lower floor was on fire," he said.

Kevin Murray, senior dispatcher at the Centre County Emergency Communication Center, remembers how he and another dispatcher, Dan Tancibok, talked a Philipsburg woman and her baby out of a burning house in February 1988.

Murray and Tancibok told the woman to go down the stairs, but the fire blocked the way. They told her to shut the door in the bedroom to keep smoke and fire from filling the room.

While fire encompassed the roof, the dispatchers convinced the woman to break a bedroom window and to drop her baby to the firefighters below. Within minutes, both mother and child were safe.

Murray and Tancibok received the 1988 Central District Volunteer Fireman Award and the 1988 Pennsylvania Medical Service Award for helping the woman.

Thirteen dispatchers at the emergency communication facility -- now located under the Fraser Street parking garage -- answer about 41,000 similar calls through 911 each year.

The system, which can trace an incoming phone call within three to five minutes, is accessible toll free from any pay phone, Murray said. The system can be adapted to give the dispatcher, within three to five seconds, the name, address and phone number of the person calling, he said. This cannot be done if the individual is calling from a pay phone, he added.

Although the communication center identifies its service area as Centre County, the 911 center services only the Centre Region. This area includes State College Borough and Patton, Ferguson, Harris, Halfmoon and College townships.

The 911 service was first available in the region in 1980.

The center is staffed 24 hours a day, seven days a week by at least two dispatchers. While the majority of the calls are police related incidents, Murray said the center also receives a large number of fire and ambulance calls.

Larry Parko, the director of the Centre County Office of Emergency Services, hopes eventually all of the county will be connected to the system.

"If someone from outside of the Centre Region called 911, they would get somebody," he said, adding the caller would be connected with a telephone operator first and the operator would patch the caller into the nearest 911 system.

Unfortunately, that takes valuable time, Parko said.

In 1980, the total number of calls into the system was 25,063. The call total for 1988 was 41,199, according to a communications center pamphlet.

The rise in calls is a result of area residents becoming more familiar with the system, Murray said.

"It's really important to have the 911 system in an area like State College where there is such a transient population," Murray said.

While the Centre Region is equipped with the 911 system, nearly two-thirds of the state does not have the system, Murray said.

Legislation has been proposed to make 911 a state-wide program, at least on a voluntary basis, Parko said.

"There (are) two versions of the bill -- one in the House and the Senate," he said.

The House bill gives no-interest loans to the counties that wish to install the system and makes allowances for personnel costs, he said, while the Senate version creates grants to be given to the counties.

Both bills, now in conference committees, sponsor a 911 subscription fee to pay for the emergency system. The subscription fee would be attached to every resident's phone bill in a participating county, Parko said.

"We're hoping for a combination of the two to prevail," he said, adding that the most ideal 911 bill would combine the House's allowance for personnel costs and the Senate's grant program.

The University will not be equipped with the 911 capability until March 2.

"As of spring break, (the University) will be going to 911," said Bruce Kline, manager of Support Services of University Safety.

The University had to reorganize the campus phone system to accommodate 911, Kline said. With the changes, a caller will have to dial "8" to get an off-campus line instead of dialing "9," he said.