LOCKHART, Texas - If you can't call 911, you can text for help, now.

The system has rolled out region-wide as of this month.

You can text 911 from any cell phone and your message appears in front of telecommunicators like  Jennifer Johnson.

Johnson then knows to send first responders your direction. She can message back a prewritten response letting you know that help is on the way.

Captain John Roescher with the Lockhart Police Department said text to 911 can be lifesaving in domestic abuse situations, and even during health related incidents like asthma attacks or heart attacks.

"It's good for the residents. It keeps them safer, and it allows us to have the same services that other communities and bigger communities have," said Roescher, who more than three decades of law enforcement experience. "When I first came here, we literally hand-wrote reports on a big chief tablet with pencil and turned them into someone else to type on a manual typewriter."

He says text to 911 is the biggest technological break-through to reach his dispatch center.

While there hasn't been an emergency texted to Lockhart Police since the system was installed, Johnson said her team is ready to press send to send you help.

Text to 911 is available in Bastrop, Blanco, Burnet, Caldwell, Fayette, Hays, Lee, Llano, Travis and Williamson counties.