Life-Line Buttons

"I've fallen and I can't get up!". Remember those commercials, where Mrs. Fletcher was laying on the floor, pressed her "Life-Line" button, and help was immediately summonsed?

Don't get me wrong...I think the Life-Line button is a good thing for elderly people that live alone. It can mean the difference between getting help to you quickly, to lying on the cold, tiled, bathroom floor for 36 hours until someone notices that they haven't heard from you.

But what happens when they are activated mistakenly? Wait, how would that happen? Well, there's 2 ways that I'm thinking of. The first, is the person is at home, and either doesn't realize they pressed the button by mistake, (2 of the more noteworthy that I can recall is the person rolling over in bed and somehow activating it, or we used to have a woman who's cat would sleep on her chest, and either nibble or scratch the button, activating it. We would show up, and surprise the heck of them). The second, is that "somehow", the Life-Line is activated when the person isn't even home.

So, what happens? Life-Line is activated, they try to establish contact with the person, they cannot, they call the local Police, who activates the Fire Department and EMS. We all show up, to find a locked door. We pound on the door, yelling, and listen, and hear no reply, or no movement. So, what do we do? We have to make entry, to make sure the person isn't unconscious, or worse?

The Fire Department usually will either try to put a ladder to a window, hoping it's unlocked, or try to pry the door open, or try to "jimmy" the lock. Worse case scenario, the door has to be broken down. So, let's say, it's resorted to the door being broken down. We all enter the house/apartment, search every room, every closet, every space, and find that the person is not even home. We (EMS), quickly and quietly exit, and let the Police and the Fire Department fight over who is going to leave a note for the person, explaining why their door has been broken down, and who is going to pay for it.

It happens quite a bit. Again, I think the Life-Line buttons are a good thing...but if you're going to have one, just remember, like everything else, it can malfunction. And unless you have a "Knox-Box" type system in place (which allows the Police or Fire Department ONLY to have access to a key to your place), just know that you could come home to a broken down door, and a note describing why.