Western Australia's ambulance service says clearly displaying house or letterbox numbers can dramatically decrease the time it takes crews to respond to emergencies.
St John Ambulance launched a campaign on WA's south coast that encouraged residents to ensure their property numbers was displayed prominently on their home, mailbox or kerb.
Great Southern regional manager Emma Doughty said ambulance officers had missed addresses during emergency callouts due to there not being a visible identifying property numbers.
"You can imagine, in an emergency service situation, every single minute counts," she said.
"Having to try to find letterboxes hidden in bushes, knocked over or not existing at all, makes it difficult."
Ms Doughty said it was an occurring theme in many areas.
Mailboxes were often overgrown with bushes or kerb numbers that had faded beyond legibility.
"There's been delays experienced by our crews where they haven't been able to locate a house or have driven passed," she said.
"There's simply no numbering, identifiable object or landmark."
Kerb numbering and landmarks key
Ms Doughty said kerb numbering was one of the best identifying methods for ambulance crews to reach a property quickly.
"Numbering for a house does really assist," she said.
"Painting a number on the kerb helps identify an address — kerb numbering is very important to us."
Ms Doughty said triple-0 callers could help crews respond more quickly by identifying nearby landmarks or by standing outside a property, if practical.
"Be clear with the number," she said.
"If there are landmarks let us know.
"That all assists our crew to make sure we turn up to the right location in a timely manner."
A St John Ambulance app also provides a real-time GPS location to the emergency crews.
"A number one thing is to download the St John First Responder app," Ms Doughty said.
"In that app is the link to call triple-0.
"Through the app it actually provides GPS location to our state operations centre. That GPS location is then sent immediacy to our crew."
