When someone says they need help, a distress case opens automatically, captures where they are and what they need, sets a priority, and lets an operator respond by text or escalate to a call.
When a Distress Case Opens
The moment somebody says they need help — or that they can't respond — a distress case opens automatically. It turns a worrying answer into something you can actually work: a single, traceable thread for that one person, sitting on the incident's Response tab ready for an operator.
From the response page — Tapping "Need help" or "Can't respond" opens a case straight away, before they've finished the rest of the form.
From a text reply — Replying NO to an "Are you safe?" alert, or texting the number to say they're not safe, does the same.
From the app — A member raising distress in-app lands in the same queue.
What You Already Know
Where the person used the response page, the case arrives with their location, their answers to your questions, and often a priority already set from what they chose — nothing had to be asked twice. Where they came in by text, whoot. gathers the essentials by SMS so no time is lost:
It asks where they are — building, floor or nearest landmark.
It asks how they need help — injured, trapped, medical, unsafe.
It reads their answers, sets a priority from the words they use, and confirms the team can see their messages.
Auto-triage can be switched off for your organisation in Settings → General if you'd rather operators lead every conversation by hand. With it on, the location and need are usually captured before anyone is free to respond.
Photos, videos and voice messages the person sends from their response page appear directly in the case — a photo of where they are or a voice message in their own words is often the fastest read in the whole case, and the voice summary sits above the player so you need not listen first to know whether you must.
Priority
Immediate — Life-threatening wording (trapped, injured, fire, weapon and the like) pushes the case to the top.
Urgent — Needs help, but not flagged life-threatening.
Standby — Logged and watched.
Unknown — Not yet triaged.
Responding
Acknowledge — Mark that the case is seen.
Claim — Take ownership so the team knows it's yours.
Reply — Text the person directly, one to one, from the case.
Set priority — Override the automatic priority if you know better.
Show on map — Jump straight to that person's pin.
Resolve — Close the case once they're safe or handed off.
Call — Escalate straight to a phone call.
Escalating to a Call
When texting isn't enough, Call dials the person from the room's own number — so the caller ID is one they'll recognise — and drops you into a voice channel with them. The call is recorded and transcribed like any other, so it lands in the incident record automatically.
Safety Reversal & Reopening
Safety reversal — If someone said they were safe and then says they're not, the case is flagged so that swing from safe to unsafe is impossible to miss.
Reopen on reply — If a resolved case gets another message from that person, it reopens itself and re-alerts the whole team — because a closed case is no reason to stop listening.
Silence on a live stream — If somebody with an open case was sharing live location and that stream goes quiet, whoot. texts them. A pocketed phone and an unconscious person look identical on a map; SMS is the channel that survives the first one.
Distress is life-safety, so the dashboard doesn't trust the live connection alone — it also refreshes on a short timer and re-alerts every operator when a case reopens. Nothing waits on a single notification getting through.