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When a police dispatcher in Dover, Delaware, received a frantic distress call about a boat sinking in the English Channel, 3,600 miles away on the other side of the Atlantic, she did not panic.

Instead, Mackenzie Atkinson quickly realized that the caller had confused the capital of Delaware with the city in England for which it is named after after searching the Internet for “Dover Police Department.”

The caller that day in late August was in the Eastern European country of Albania and was desperate to help his brother, whose boat was off the coast of Dover in England.

Atkinson left the caller on the phone and gathered additional information, such as the boater’s latitude and longitude coordinates, rather than wasting valuable time trying to route the caller to an overseas number.

Using her new skills learned at the International Academies of Emergency Dispatch, Atkinson followed protocols for a vessel in distress. She continued to speak with the caller while her colleague Connor Logan made international announcements about the nautical emergency.

Within four minutes, Delaware operators made contact with the French Coast Guard, His Majesty’s Coast Guard of England, and the police in the English town of the same name in Delaware.

Their quick and precise actions paid off.

Barely 15 minutes after the first distress call, rescue teams were on their way to the boat in distress. All persons on board and the boat returned safely to port in England.