Florida Mom Advocates for National Emergency Contact System After Daughter's Death

The Tragedy and the Wait

• 💔 Christine Olsen lost her 22-year-old daughter, Tiffany, in 2005 due to a drunk driver who ran a stop sign.
• ⏳ Olsen experienced immense helplessness and confusion, as law enforcement took 6 and a half hours to notify her of the crash, despite her living only 15 minutes away.
• ⏱️ This delay is representative of the national average, where it can take 6 hours to notify loved ones after a tragedy.

The TIFF Initiative

• 💡 To combat this delay, Olsen founded the To Inform Families First (TIFF) initiative in honor of her daughter.
• 🎯 TIFF aims to reduce the notification time to as little as 2 minutes.
• 💻 The system involves a voluntary emergency contact database linked to driver's licenses and state IDs.
• 📊 Currently, approximately 22 million people are registered in Florida's TIFF program.

National Push and 'Every Second Counts'

• 🏛️ The TIFF Act, championed by Congressman Vern Buchanan, has reached Washington D.C. with the goal of making this system national.
• 🌐 If passed, the act would provide federal assistance to state DMVs to adopt the program.
• 📢 In the meantime, Olsen launched the Every Second Counts campaign to encourage more people to register or update their emergency contact information.
• ✅ Florida was the first state to implement such a system, and 18 other states have since followed suit.