As a dispatcher there for greater than a decade (by way of intro), the dispatchers (these days) via 911, assesses the call by the Greek alphabet. Alpha being the least of an emergency and delta being the most. They are on the other end of the phone, so they are analyzing it from what the caller(s) say. Omega (the other remaining level) actually
implies the person has deceased. Again, this is derived from the point of view of the other side of the phone.
The emergency responders get on the scene and report a status 1 (which is the highest) to a status 4 (which is a non transport). A signal 22 is equivalent to the omega level from above.
Its something that has developed over the years for quick information transfer between the responder and dispatcher without a lot of misleading verbiage one might encounter from certain members on a forum...
