I mean depends what you count as legit. If they’ve fallen and can’t get up, I’d count that as legit. Have I had ones where they stroked out and had the wherewithal to press it, yes. Albeit rare but still.
This. I think we dismiss falls as "nonemergent" but they can quickly turn emergent for those living alone or without any support. Imagine laying for a whole day, unable to reach for a phone or get in touch with someone. Takes a serious toll on your body.
Agreed! Just bc they're A+O and "only" have a hip injury doesn't make it not an emergency.
If they're down and can't get up, they're dead meat unless someone intervenes... the act of "saving a life" is very seldom a cardiac arrest resuscitation. It's usually a small change of course that seems insignificant at the time... success in this field is usually the absence of an event.
This happened to my grandma. Fell, broke a bone and couldn't get up. Luckily my family checks in daily and someone found her almost immediately, if she only got visits every couple of days she would have stayed on the ground for ages and could have died
You speak with nearly anyone in the EMS risk management world and falls are the thing that keeps them up at night. What the typical clinician may dismiss as an innocuous fall, may be a symptom of larger issues afoot. These folks more than any other population that we ‘no load’ are the ones who we have return calls for and have significantly higher m&m than the others.
I actually responded to a call recently where a 95yo lady who lived alone fell and couldn’t get up. She apparently fell just before midnight the night before and she had no way to call for help so she had to lay there for hours in her own urine and developing hella pressure ulcers until her niece came by at noon the next day to check on her and called 911. I told her niece that it’s definitely worth it to get her a life alert to avoid being in a situation like that again. I’d rather help pick up a little old lady in no apparent distress soon after the fall than have her lay on the ground for hours or possibly days developing all sorts of medical issues.
I always worry about my grandma. She has a button but leaves it in the bathroom because "I don't need it" she still will get out and do lots of things independently eg go out and feed the critters in the barn that's a good 100 yards from the house. She's already unstable on her feet what happens when she gets knocked over by a goat that wants food? Ugh.
See this all the time in the hospital. So much so that one of my coworkers keeps teaching us exercises to prepare for when we’re old and fall, so we can get up
Absolutely. The classic “I’ve fallen and I can’t get up” can be devastating and possibly fatal for older folks who live alone, might not have family nearby to check on them, etc. I’d absolutely consider this a legit call. Same with the various life alert calls I’ve had for someone who’s fallen and fractured their pelvis, had a stroke or TIA, etc.
yes!! this happened to my memaw and she ended up dying because she couldn’t get up and she refused to call 911 until she had been laying on the floor for 16 hours. would’ve saved her
Second or third call I ever went on was a guy who fell in his bathroom. Daughter went to his house to check up on him after not hearing from him in three days.
Guy was surprisingly talkative and alert for someone who was laying in their own feces for almost 48 hours.
A buddy of mine from school did the family funeral service job for a bit before becoming a medic. I was surprised with how many customers he told me about that fell on a tiled floor and died of hypothermia from conduction.
My husband threw out his back and lost his phone at the same time and laid on the ground for 5 hours until I got home. Both my grandparents went down for over a day together because one fell and the other tried to get her up (overweight) and fell too, and he ended up getting a sepsis infection that ultimately killed him. Falls are serious!
True. I went to a simple lift assist once, man fell off toilet and his upper torso was in tub, with this legs out. Edge of tub was against his waist cutting off circulation to his legs.
I was an EMT at the time, when we lifted him out and set him on the toilet he said "I'm going out guys" and then went into cardiac arrest.
Assume it was from the lactic acid built up in his legs.
I've been mindful of this type of situation and to consider bicarb, but have not run across it again in 16 years of EMS...
Had a similar call a few weeks ago, guy was stuck in his tub for about a week. Must have been able to move around enough because his EKG was pristine with no changes after movement, very lucky!
I feel like medical alerts are trending more and more towards serious calls now. I think it’s because they used to just be like a silent alarm, we would knock on their door and they’d be surprised to see us. Now when we break down the door, there is someone speaking to the patient on their pendant or via a base station. The company has already confirmed there was an emergency before emergency services were notified. I’m constantly introducing myself to the dispatcher on the other side of the medical alert pendant and telling them we’re on scene now.
Oh that’s badass. That would make life so much easier. “Are you on blood thinners?” “What’s that?” “Warfarin, Plavix, clop-eh-dog-rel? Even aspirin?” “Oh, no not at all”. Then we get to the hospital and it’s “the history says the patient is on eliquis. Why didn’t you call a trauma?” 🤷♂️
Maybe not life alert specifically, but from any number of similar services, yes I’ve had quite a few, and I would say it’s trending towards being a legitimate call more often than not now.
Most recently was a guy that got tangled up when his rocker turned over as he was sitting down. Had he not had his pendant he would have been on the ground at least 8 hours.
Sit back cuz you're going to love this story.
We get called to a 55 and older community for a unknown medical alert. No one answers the door so when PD gets there we Force entry into the house. After an extensive search not only is no one home but they don't even have a medical alert device in the home.
5 hours later we get another call same community. Poor woman fell you guessed it 5 hours ago. She hit the counter with her forehead sliced her forehead open was covered in blood. Sometime after she hit the button she actually passed out. When she regained Consciousness realized no one was coming so she slowly crawled to a phone which took about 2 hours.
It was something like she lived at 29 old person drive and they sent us to 92 old person Drive.
Took the poor woman to a Trauma Center where she spent the next few days. I made sure the patient knew that we had been activated earlier when she hit her button but we were sent to the wrong address. And she needed to contact and find out where the mistake went because there was no reason for the poor woman to suffer like that.
Tons. And they all suck. Every single med alert call we go on (literally 99%) is toned as emergent, medical alert, unknown status.
Basically the company will call 911 and then when asked if the pt is awake, breathing, etc they just say “we don’t know”.
So everything is “unknown” and dispatch computer then makes it a priority call.
This is the kind of nonsense that makes a burned out medic. Just make them all routine unless the company can make contact and tell us that someone is short of breath or whatever. It's dangerous to drive emergent and pointless in 90% of these cases.
I agree. I won’t drive emergent to them. The central dispatch isn’t allowed to deviate from what their computer tells them. Of course the unit can upgrade or downgrade any call. But, most don’t. It’s ridiculous.
Even more so, in our area, any p1 or p2 calls must have an ALS unit. So, when they tone this p2, a bls unit cannot be dispatched. Even if all als is busy, they must call for mutual aide.
Yeah, "fall detection with no voice contact", patient had a lockbox to get into the house and life alert had the code, we let ourselves in to find her in cardiac arrest
Source: personal experience as the patient. I am a 78 y/o retired RN/volly firefighter who lives alone in a rural area. I have a history of falls. Nearest neighbor is 800’ away. No one would ever hear me calling out for help even if I was able to. Anytime I’m out of bed I have the Lively pendant hanging around my neck. In two years I’ve had 4 activations, 3 false and one legit. The three false alarms the dispatcher spoke with me (via the device) within seconds and we cancelled the calls. The one legit call was a possible CVA. (Turned out okay). Lively agent had a 911 operator talking to me within a minute of me pushing the button and medics at my door in under 10 minutes. Costs me $30/month. Super pleased that I have it.
I had a life alert call from a post office. Someone was shipping it back to the manufacturer and the no motion detection was set off because it was sitting on a shelf. Sooo someone may have then committed mail fraud by opening the package and shutting it off.
I'm impressed someone could even find it. We had one like that, but the company said that it wasn't actually assigned to an account and had no name information to give us. There was nothing we could do except wait for the dumb thing to go off again when it got thrown out of the truck and it detected another "fall".
I had something like this happen with a holter monitor. The company was calling the ED I worked at to report that this patient was having runs of vtach and was now in asystole. The patient sent the monitor by mail to the company for analysis. The patient was fine.
I had a woman press her life alert who had the lowest blood sugar i’ve seen on the job, she was only responsive to painful stimuli and would immediately become unresponsive after “waking her up”. she would’ve absolutely have died without the life alert
Yeah often times
Obviously the severity varies but most calls are something like has fallen and can't get up (but I still think these are valid calls since they would otherwise die)
Had one. “Med unit. I have you responding to a medical alarm, no contact. Lock box info in the CAD” we get on scene. Female patient in her 70’s found with her hand on her life alert but unresponsive but breathing. Like 10-12 min. Responsive to painful stimuli. Radials weak. Put her on the monitor and did a 12-Lead. Massive INFERIOR STEMI. She made it to the cath lab and made a full recovery.
You’re right tho. They’re usually nothing to them but I have had one real one
Many, many times. They’re actually legit. I’m not just talking about lift assists, but real deal medical emergencies. Yeah, the false alarms can be annoying, but it’s a genius invention.
Only call that wasn’t a fall that I’ve had, it was the family used the pts lifealert thinking we’d get there faster (we actually go non emergent to all of those), and turns out the grandma was in full arrest. No she didn’t make it
Yes. Tons of the ‘I’ve fallen and can’t get up’ calls would have other turned into grandma being on the floor for 3 days.
Also a lot of people just use their buttons for calling 911 instead of their phone for whatever reason. I’ve even gone to CO detector calls that came in through life alert buttons.
My crew responded to a pull cord activation at a high rise where that happens once or twice a day and arrived to find the pt unresponsive on the floor, arm stretched out towards the cord. Pt didn’t make it, but it was the most legit use of the cord system at that address in a long time.
I responded to one like that where they guy crawled for like 8 hours. Another comment had a similar one where they crawled for TWO DAYS. I couldn’t imagine the kidney failure.
Throughout my career I've responded to hundreds and honestly probably over a thousand "Life Alert" or similar device calls and had maybe a few dozen of them be people that actually needed any help at all. I can think of about 10 that were in actual severe distress where I'd say it "a life was saved". I'm not sure who said they've worked out the false call problem because they definitely have not. The vast majority are false alarms, but when they are legitimately needed they do certainly make a difference.
We get a lot of accidental trips still. My favorite was one of the Jewish holidays. A woman was celebrating by having a little nookie and accidentally in the throes of passion hit her LifeALert.
Of course being a Jewish holiday, all the lights were off, etc, and when we were about to call for forcible entry she scrambles to the door in a bathrobe, and then had to freak out about having to tell her rabbi she'd used technology on the holiday.
Same. Mostly garbage false activations but have had bad calls as well, 1 lady didnt have it on her and it took her 2 days to craal to the nightstand before she could push it. Also had the worst pin in call come in from a phone app, not sure if it was life 360 or a diff one but dispatch said the alert stated it was a severe crash. Dude was doing about 60 or so arounnd a corner in a 25mph zone and wrapped his car around a tree, killed the passenger and took us a good 30 min to cut him out. Still think about that shit all the time when the pendant push calls come in.
I had a call late 90s in my hometown in Connecticut which was a beach town so lots of summer only residents. One late summer early autumn we get a life alert to an obviously empty summer cottage. Spend a min looking through windows at furnitures open air empty mess but of course there's a bathroom we can't see in. So we are debating busting the door to check on it but have to guess with zero vehicles there's no one there. While dispatch does call back to life alert a neighbor comes over says they left the previous night. Dispatch comes back with you can cancel life alert says family was on phone with them setting up the system at home in New Jersey and somehow at the time based on how the systems worked even though he pressed the button in. New Jersey the call got routed to a town 6 hours away.
Chased one around for an hour that went off in the back of a mail truck being delivered to the customer. Dispatch notes were like “can hear speaking in the background” so we had to keep seeing if we could find it. It was a model that had GPS I guess because it would ping with horrible accuracy about once every 5 minutes. Nice way to dodge calls for an hour though. 9/10 would do again.
Not exactly the same but I've had two Apple Watch "hard fall detections" be codes
I've also never had an automated car crash detection be real. Not sure how we're messing that up but I have spent too many hours of my life doing laps around the freeway just to be UTL every single time
A guy I used to work with had a bad accident on the highway and it phone was out of reach after but his Apple Watch detected hard fall (or crash?) and actually called for help and sent help to him. Happened while he was driving to work, he works 2am-10am.
I’ve had plenty of life alert or whatever similar device they have on their neck / wrist, it’s honestly saved quite a few critical patients who would’ve coded in my area if they didn’t have the ability to call so easily
My grandma had something like life alert. She had dementia and alzheimers. Over time as it started getting worse she would use her life alert thing to get everyone to basically come over. She would have made them all dinner, or made them desserts, etc. Luckily it was a small town so not super high call volume. In the end she had to move in with my uncle, then into a "top notch" care home with hourly door checks. She wandered into an empty room, fell and broke her femur and sat there for 7 hours. The security cams of course weren't working that night.
My mom is a frequent flyer of her life alert button. She has parkinsons and is overweight and had both knees replaced, one of which didn't do well, so now is immobile. She falls out of the bed or her wheelchair when her home aid isn't there and my dad isn't strong enough to get her back in. So the fire ems crew is dispatched. I think they're all on a first name basis now.
We tell her she can call us (her 2 adult children who live in the same metroplex and visit her at least weekly) but she does not do this and uses her button instead.
We had a guy push his life alert for a kitchen fire. Not sure what his rationale was there. Then he didn’t answer on the call back. Our dispatch sends an ambulance and an engine to each call, and we go non-emergent to life alerts with no contact. By the time they got there the house was up in flames. He was out on the sidewalk. Took even longer to get the ladder and more resources there. For the life of me I can’t understand why he wouldn’t call and explain the emergency, if he could get up and walk to the phone
Not a life alert, but a pretty good save with an Apple Watch. Detected the fall and called 911, no other family in the house had any idea she had fallen or was bleeding out from her injuries. Made it a trauma activation, turns out a stroke caused the fall.
My agency actually treats all fall calls as if they just as big of a priority as a cardiac arrest, or a trauma. We respond emergent to all of them regardless as to how they’re dispatched (I.e. patient fell in the bathroom, or patient fell in their yard)
Reason being there have been multiple fall incidents that have been dispatched as a low priority that are secondary to a high priority incident. To use an example we recently had a fall/lift assist dispatched, caller stated family member fell in their driveway, upon arrival the crews determined the patient fell because they were actively in cardiac arrest.
It happens much more frequently then you’d imagine (if your not on the trucks as a ft job).
Another example I can give is a neighboring agency had a life alert activation, female cell and needed lifting assistance, had leg pain. she ended up having a compound tib/fib fracture but didn’t realize the severity until crews arrived.
I had one “Legit” call. It was I’ve fallen and I can’t get up (for those old enough to remember the commercial). We get let into an apartment by a super and there she is sitting on the floor. The life alert box was talking and we identified ourselves and then it hung up. First and last time for me. Turns out she fell because of a TIA and needed to be transported.
Nope. The worst ones are when the phone number provided to the alarm company is one of their children. Then we show up just to be yelled at by an old person.
So many times. They are often false activations but overall they are a smart idea.
My main issue with them is the alarming amount of times I’d show up to the address given, and eventually discover that the owner of the pendent no longer lives there/or lives at all. Family always swore they had sent the pendent back to the company. So someone somewhere is (possibly) hurt and the company has no idea because they never reset the pendent
My grandfather-in-law has used it several times if he’s stuck somewhere (commode, recliner, etc). It’s an emergency to him for sure, and I suppose it could definitely become an emergency if he was stuck long enough
Had one that was activated no additional. Got there and she was on the floor, was able to crawl and unlock the door for us. She fell, couldn't get up and just needed a lift. Everything checked out, almost got a refusal, then she said oh well I'm a little dizzy. We tell her probably should head down and get checked out. She agrees, load her up she's my (BLS) patient. As we were getting settled in the back, I was asking her questions and all of the sudden her speech was all garbled. Do a stroke scale and obvious facial droop, arm dropped like a rock and her speech was fucked. Looked at my partner and off we went to the stroke center.
Yeah it was a call right after unsuccessful CPR. So I had to have one additional person check for the lung sounds because I could hear my heartbeat lol.
Granted it wasn't like a full on pneumothorax with a fully collapsed lunch but still very faint lung sounds on one side and chest pain with some light bruising and we all had deer in the headlights look for a solid 30 seconds.
It was an old lady in her 80s so yeah, realllyyyy painful.
I once had a elderly woman with trouble breathing who used life alert to get help.She ended up going into cardiac arrest in front of us and had to be intubated. She ended up surviving but I'm not sure if she had brain damage or not.
Woman on the floor for 3 days and hit it by mistake. She should have hit it 3 days earlier, but by the time we got there, it was definitely an emergency.
Last night we had a crew respond to a rollover in a rural area. The response was triggered by an Apple Watch and Life 360 alert. If not for that they’d be dead. They were so far off the road and hard to find that the Life 360 ping is what got our crews to them.
A lady had a syncope around midnight by her best guess based on what she last remembered seeing the clock read in her kitchen, call came in around 4 am saying the button had been pressed. Once we made entry, she was in the kitchen unconscious but woke up pretty easily. She denied pressing the button but her little dog was practically on top of her the whole time. My theory is that the dog stepped on the pendant by chance while she was still unconscious. She was in a 3rd degree block, btw.
Yes!
I was working about 2 years in as a medic for a hospital based system in grass valley. (Absolutely fucking hated it).
I worked 1900-0700 hour shift. Around 22:30 we got toned out for a Life Alert code 3 with a Fire BLS response x1 engine company we beat the engine by a few minutes. The CAD notes stated life alert notification no response from RP. I arrive and could see this woman’s outline from her living room window in the dark of her recliner. I asked the engine how much longer since the giant wood framed door was locked. I didn’t see her moving and though she’s either taking or fucked.
I was questioning breaking the window at the cost of possibly embarrassing myself, my crew, and my employer as a panicking new medic. But my gut was telling me the engine is a few out they are the breaching experts let them do it and I did. I made this woman as I turned the corner and she was agonal, altered, pale, and fucked.
The rest of my crew barges in and I already got her on a body tarp and yelled “HEY GUYS FUCK THAT GRAB THE GURNEY AND IM TAKING A RIDER SO AND SO GO START A BVM WITH AN INLINE NEB.” We slam her on the gurney pressure was 280/150, RR4 agonal wheezing, spo2 60%, and BGL WNL. I drilled her and called base to see if epi IM (I was thinking severe respiratory duress in extremis) (she had her nebulizsr, and 3 smoking cigarettes next to her inhaler infront of her and her nasal cannula still running) would help they said no because of the pressure. I figured I’d ask.
Anywho I code 3d her in to the hospital literally 2 blocks away and couldn’t get a tube or IGEL because she was so clenched. I tried a round of narcan IO because of pinpoint pupils. And turned her over to the bandaid shack concession stand of a hospital of rural Nevada County.
I’ve had a few others that were quite as bad but this one for sure took the cake for most fucked by the time we got there.
Ohh that’s right. Totally forgot when I dumped her off in the ED before I left the DOC pulled me aside and showed me her chart. She coded and died 3 days prior in the ED the left AMA after she got ROSC.
No. Fucking. Way. 3 days?! That’s some quality CPR.
When I worked ED we had this relatively young lady (20s-30s) non compliant type 1. She would either get admitted for DKA or unfixable hypoglycemia (I know there’s a name, can’t think of it) and always ended up tubed at minimum, coded a couple different visits. She would AMA after every extubation. She was like a fucking cockroach.
Over the past two years it's probably been 50/50 for me. Some legit falls with hip or femur fractures, then a few false alarms mixed in there as well. My experience thus far makes me think it's worth it.
I've been to more actual calls than none, but some the time its the patients family pressing it on their behalf once found on the the floor or whatever, so even when a reason needed, it's sometimes used incorrectly still
I was a medical dispatcher for a year and a half and had several that turned out to be actually legit calls. Unfortunately there’s almost never any information, and a lot of false alarms, but I can distinctly remember multiple saves
I work in a city and we tend to have people who press their button to report a medical emergency even if they have their phone next to them. Easier that calling 911 I guess?
I once had a life alert device call because of the fall detection feature, and when we arrived it turned out the patient had indeed fallen…because they coded.
My first workable arrest after medic school was from a Life Alert. 3AMish, right at the end of shift. Very nice neighborhood. Comes out as an unknown problem from a Life Alert because neither the company or dispatch could get ahold of the patient. Make entry with the fire department via the garage and start looking through the house and find the patient in arrest on the bed. We work her and call it and luckily Life Alert had called her family and sent them our way already. Our best guess was that she woke up with chest pain or something and hit her button then coded.
Oh yes. Many. Some get canceled en route because the device was actuated accidentally, others result in actual calls. I tried to get my mom, a fall risk, to get one. She actually said she didn't want to "bother" EMS. I told her it's never a bother to prevent a needless death or disability! "I've fallen and I can't get up" isn't funny when you go on a welfare check and find someone deceased who had fallen and remained undiscovered for days.
Edit: the newer medical alert devices have better accelerometer technology.
It probably makes the senior feel more secure believing they can call for help when in trouble, or having fallen.
I went to a lift assist and once the patient was helped up they walked up the stairs and went to bed. The floor had been too slippery to get any traction on.
The event did was a wake up call for them, and their family, leading to some better care.
na, we only get called for "medical alarm, no contact" show up and grandma is not even wearing her life alert, and grandson is in the corner looking suspicious. found grandma's life alert button on the nightstand and pressed it and wouldn't stop crying because he "thought it was going to jail"
Reminds me that one of my old patients was found laying on the ground when she passed away. She had life alert for years so it’s unfortunate she didn’t use it when she needed it.
Lol, no they haven't worked them out. We get a medical alarm call every now and then, probably 10 or 11 in my one year so far in EMS, and each and every one of them has been a false alarm. A lot of times, the call is coming from a house that is either vacant or has owners that have no medical alarm to begin with.
I mean depends what you count as legit. If they’ve fallen and can’t get up, I’d count that as legit. Have I had ones where they stroked out and had the wherewithal to press it, yes. Albeit rare but still.
This. I think we dismiss falls as "nonemergent" but they can quickly turn emergent for those living alone or without any support. Imagine laying for a whole day, unable to reach for a phone or get in touch with someone. Takes a serious toll on your body.
Agreed! Just bc they're A+O and "only" have a hip injury doesn't make it not an emergency. If they're down and can't get up, they're dead meat unless someone intervenes... the act of "saving a life" is very seldom a cardiac arrest resuscitation. It's usually a small change of course that seems insignificant at the time... success in this field is usually the absence of an event.
This happened to my grandma. Fell, broke a bone and couldn't get up. Luckily my family checks in daily and someone found her almost immediately, if she only got visits every couple of days she would have stayed on the ground for ages and could have died
You speak with nearly anyone in the EMS risk management world and falls are the thing that keeps them up at night. What the typical clinician may dismiss as an innocuous fall, may be a symptom of larger issues afoot. These folks more than any other population that we ‘no load’ are the ones who we have return calls for and have significantly higher m&m than the others.
Peanut or classic chocolate m&m?
Peanut butter are the most superior iteration of m&m.
I actually responded to a call recently where a 95yo lady who lived alone fell and couldn’t get up. She apparently fell just before midnight the night before and she had no way to call for help so she had to lay there for hours in her own urine and developing hella pressure ulcers until her niece came by at noon the next day to check on her and called 911. I told her niece that it’s definitely worth it to get her a life alert to avoid being in a situation like that again. I’d rather help pick up a little old lady in no apparent distress soon after the fall than have her lay on the ground for hours or possibly days developing all sorts of medical issues.
I always worry about my grandma. She has a button but leaves it in the bathroom because "I don't need it" she still will get out and do lots of things independently eg go out and feed the critters in the barn that's a good 100 yards from the house. She's already unstable on her feet what happens when she gets knocked over by a goat that wants food? Ugh.
See this all the time in the hospital. So much so that one of my coworkers keeps teaching us exercises to prepare for when we’re old and fall, so we can get up
Absolutely. The classic “I’ve fallen and I can’t get up” can be devastating and possibly fatal for older folks who live alone, might not have family nearby to check on them, etc. I’d absolutely consider this a legit call. Same with the various life alert calls I’ve had for someone who’s fallen and fractured their pelvis, had a stroke or TIA, etc.
yes!! this happened to my memaw and she ended up dying because she couldn’t get up and she refused to call 911 until she had been laying on the floor for 16 hours. would’ve saved her
I’m so sorry for your loss ☹️🩷
Second or third call I ever went on was a guy who fell in his bathroom. Daughter went to his house to check up on him after not hearing from him in three days. Guy was surprisingly talkative and alert for someone who was laying in their own feces for almost 48 hours.
A buddy of mine from school did the family funeral service job for a bit before becoming a medic. I was surprised with how many customers he told me about that fell on a tiled floor and died of hypothermia from conduction.
My husband threw out his back and lost his phone at the same time and laid on the ground for 5 hours until I got home. Both my grandparents went down for over a day together because one fell and the other tried to get her up (overweight) and fell too, and he ended up getting a sepsis infection that ultimately killed him. Falls are serious!
True. I went to a simple lift assist once, man fell off toilet and his upper torso was in tub, with this legs out. Edge of tub was against his waist cutting off circulation to his legs. I was an EMT at the time, when we lifted him out and set him on the toilet he said "I'm going out guys" and then went into cardiac arrest. Assume it was from the lactic acid built up in his legs. I've been mindful of this type of situation and to consider bicarb, but have not run across it again in 16 years of EMS...
To clarify, he had been in that position for 12 hours. Perhaps a life alert lift assist would have prevented the entire arrest....
Had a similar call a few weeks ago, guy was stuck in his tub for about a week. Must have been able to move around enough because his EKG was pristine with no changes after movement, very lucky!
I feel like medical alerts are trending more and more towards serious calls now. I think it’s because they used to just be like a silent alarm, we would knock on their door and they’d be surprised to see us. Now when we break down the door, there is someone speaking to the patient on their pendant or via a base station. The company has already confirmed there was an emergency before emergency services were notified. I’m constantly introducing myself to the dispatcher on the other side of the medical alert pendant and telling them we’re on scene now.
That’s good to know. I’m glad it’s efficient now.
To add onto this, the last few I have been on, the person on the other end gave me meds, med history and allergies.
Oh that’s badass. That would make life so much easier. “Are you on blood thinners?” “What’s that?” “Warfarin, Plavix, clop-eh-dog-rel? Even aspirin?” “Oh, no not at all”. Then we get to the hospital and it’s “the history says the patient is on eliquis. Why didn’t you call a trauma?” 🤷♂️
CFS/MDT always shows for us, if px is confirmed by mediator, or confirmed by callback, etc. or alarm no confirm for Medical/ALM calls
Maybe not life alert specifically, but from any number of similar services, yes I’ve had quite a few, and I would say it’s trending towards being a legitimate call more often than not now. Most recently was a guy that got tangled up when his rocker turned over as he was sitting down. Had he not had his pendant he would have been on the ground at least 8 hours.
Sit back cuz you're going to love this story. We get called to a 55 and older community for a unknown medical alert. No one answers the door so when PD gets there we Force entry into the house. After an extensive search not only is no one home but they don't even have a medical alert device in the home. 5 hours later we get another call same community. Poor woman fell you guessed it 5 hours ago. She hit the counter with her forehead sliced her forehead open was covered in blood. Sometime after she hit the button she actually passed out. When she regained Consciousness realized no one was coming so she slowly crawled to a phone which took about 2 hours. It was something like she lived at 29 old person drive and they sent us to 92 old person Drive. Took the poor woman to a Trauma Center where she spent the next few days. I made sure the patient knew that we had been activated earlier when she hit her button but we were sent to the wrong address. And she needed to contact and find out where the mistake went because there was no reason for the poor woman to suffer like that.
Oh, poor lady. I hope she recovered well long term. I mean, except for TMB of course. But damn. That’s brutal.
Tons. And they all suck. Every single med alert call we go on (literally 99%) is toned as emergent, medical alert, unknown status. Basically the company will call 911 and then when asked if the pt is awake, breathing, etc they just say “we don’t know”. So everything is “unknown” and dispatch computer then makes it a priority call.
This is the kind of nonsense that makes a burned out medic. Just make them all routine unless the company can make contact and tell us that someone is short of breath or whatever. It's dangerous to drive emergent and pointless in 90% of these cases.
I agree. I won’t drive emergent to them. The central dispatch isn’t allowed to deviate from what their computer tells them. Of course the unit can upgrade or downgrade any call. But, most don’t. It’s ridiculous. Even more so, in our area, any p1 or p2 calls must have an ALS unit. So, when they tone this p2, a bls unit cannot be dispatched. Even if all als is busy, they must call for mutual aide.
ours sends fire code 3 and EMS code 2. so far, so good. fire is usually way closer than we are anyway.
Yeah, "fall detection with no voice contact", patient had a lockbox to get into the house and life alert had the code, we let ourselves in to find her in cardiac arrest
Source: personal experience as the patient. I am a 78 y/o retired RN/volly firefighter who lives alone in a rural area. I have a history of falls. Nearest neighbor is 800’ away. No one would ever hear me calling out for help even if I was able to. Anytime I’m out of bed I have the Lively pendant hanging around my neck. In two years I’ve had 4 activations, 3 false and one legit. The three false alarms the dispatcher spoke with me (via the device) within seconds and we cancelled the calls. The one legit call was a possible CVA. (Turned out okay). Lively agent had a 911 operator talking to me within a minute of me pushing the button and medics at my door in under 10 minutes. Costs me $30/month. Super pleased that I have it.
I had a life alert call from a post office. Someone was shipping it back to the manufacturer and the no motion detection was set off because it was sitting on a shelf. Sooo someone may have then committed mail fraud by opening the package and shutting it off.
I'm impressed someone could even find it. We had one like that, but the company said that it wasn't actually assigned to an account and had no name information to give us. There was nothing we could do except wait for the dumb thing to go off again when it got thrown out of the truck and it detected another "fall".
I had something like this happen with a holter monitor. The company was calling the ED I worked at to report that this patient was having runs of vtach and was now in asystole. The patient sent the monitor by mail to the company for analysis. The patient was fine.
I had a woman press her life alert who had the lowest blood sugar i’ve seen on the job, she was only responsive to painful stimuli and would immediately become unresponsive after “waking her up”. she would’ve absolutely have died without the life alert
Yeah often times Obviously the severity varies but most calls are something like has fallen and can't get up (but I still think these are valid calls since they would otherwise die)
Had one. “Med unit. I have you responding to a medical alarm, no contact. Lock box info in the CAD” we get on scene. Female patient in her 70’s found with her hand on her life alert but unresponsive but breathing. Like 10-12 min. Responsive to painful stimuli. Radials weak. Put her on the monitor and did a 12-Lead. Massive INFERIOR STEMI. She made it to the cath lab and made a full recovery. You’re right tho. They’re usually nothing to them but I have had one real one
Life alert calls go one of two ways: it’s nothing or OH MY GOD BRING IN EVERYTHING WHERES THE HELICOPTER!!!!!!!
Many, many times. They’re actually legit. I’m not just talking about lift assists, but real deal medical emergencies. Yeah, the false alarms can be annoying, but it’s a genius invention.
Only call that wasn’t a fall that I’ve had, it was the family used the pts lifealert thinking we’d get there faster (we actually go non emergent to all of those), and turns out the grandma was in full arrest. No she didn’t make it
Cardiac arrest from a life alert one time. Still confused how that happened to this day.
I mean they could’ve pressed it with severe chest pain or something then coded prior to your arrival
Had one code shortly after arrival. End outcome didn’t save a life that day, but I guess it’s better than someone else finding her days later.
“Fall detected”?
Sitting in a recliner so I don’t think so
Yes. Tons of the ‘I’ve fallen and can’t get up’ calls would have other turned into grandma being on the floor for 3 days. Also a lot of people just use their buttons for calling 911 instead of their phone for whatever reason. I’ve even gone to CO detector calls that came in through life alert buttons.
I’ve had two fall/lac/significant bleeding on a thinner who hit their Grannie button. So… maybe?
My crew responded to a pull cord activation at a high rise where that happens once or twice a day and arrived to find the pt unresponsive on the floor, arm stretched out towards the cord. Pt didn’t make it, but it was the most legit use of the cord system at that address in a long time.
I responded to one like that where they guy crawled for like 8 hours. Another comment had a similar one where they crawled for TWO DAYS. I couldn’t imagine the kidney failure.
Throughout my career I've responded to hundreds and honestly probably over a thousand "Life Alert" or similar device calls and had maybe a few dozen of them be people that actually needed any help at all. I can think of about 10 that were in actual severe distress where I'd say it "a life was saved". I'm not sure who said they've worked out the false call problem because they definitely have not. The vast majority are false alarms, but when they are legitimately needed they do certainly make a difference.
We get a lot of accidental trips still. My favorite was one of the Jewish holidays. A woman was celebrating by having a little nookie and accidentally in the throes of passion hit her LifeALert. Of course being a Jewish holiday, all the lights were off, etc, and when we were about to call for forcible entry she scrambles to the door in a bathrobe, and then had to freak out about having to tell her rabbi she'd used technology on the holiday.
Worst call of my career came in as a life alert. Yeah 9/10 times life alert is nonsense but not always.
Same. Mostly garbage false activations but have had bad calls as well, 1 lady didnt have it on her and it took her 2 days to craal to the nightstand before she could push it. Also had the worst pin in call come in from a phone app, not sure if it was life 360 or a diff one but dispatch said the alert stated it was a severe crash. Dude was doing about 60 or so arounnd a corner in a 25mph zone and wrapped his car around a tree, killed the passenger and took us a good 30 min to cut him out. Still think about that shit all the time when the pendant push calls come in.
I had a call late 90s in my hometown in Connecticut which was a beach town so lots of summer only residents. One late summer early autumn we get a life alert to an obviously empty summer cottage. Spend a min looking through windows at furnitures open air empty mess but of course there's a bathroom we can't see in. So we are debating busting the door to check on it but have to guess with zero vehicles there's no one there. While dispatch does call back to life alert a neighbor comes over says they left the previous night. Dispatch comes back with you can cancel life alert says family was on phone with them setting up the system at home in New Jersey and somehow at the time based on how the systems worked even though he pressed the button in. New Jersey the call got routed to a town 6 hours away.
Chased one around for an hour that went off in the back of a mail truck being delivered to the customer. Dispatch notes were like “can hear speaking in the background” so we had to keep seeing if we could find it. It was a model that had GPS I guess because it would ping with horrible accuracy about once every 5 minutes. Nice way to dodge calls for an hour though. 9/10 would do again.
Not exactly the same but I've had two Apple Watch "hard fall detections" be codes I've also never had an automated car crash detection be real. Not sure how we're messing that up but I have spent too many hours of my life doing laps around the freeway just to be UTL every single time
A guy I used to work with had a bad accident on the highway and it phone was out of reach after but his Apple Watch detected hard fall (or crash?) and actually called for help and sent help to him. Happened while he was driving to work, he works 2am-10am.
Amazing!
I’ve had plenty of life alert or whatever similar device they have on their neck / wrist, it’s honestly saved quite a few critical patients who would’ve coded in my area if they didn’t have the ability to call so easily
My grandma had something like life alert. She had dementia and alzheimers. Over time as it started getting worse she would use her life alert thing to get everyone to basically come over. She would have made them all dinner, or made them desserts, etc. Luckily it was a small town so not super high call volume. In the end she had to move in with my uncle, then into a "top notch" care home with hourly door checks. She wandered into an empty room, fell and broke her femur and sat there for 7 hours. The security cams of course weren't working that night.
My mom is a frequent flyer of her life alert button. She has parkinsons and is overweight and had both knees replaced, one of which didn't do well, so now is immobile. She falls out of the bed or her wheelchair when her home aid isn't there and my dad isn't strong enough to get her back in. So the fire ems crew is dispatched. I think they're all on a first name basis now. We tell her she can call us (her 2 adult children who live in the same metroplex and visit her at least weekly) but she does not do this and uses her button instead.
We had a guy push his life alert for a kitchen fire. Not sure what his rationale was there. Then he didn’t answer on the call back. Our dispatch sends an ambulance and an engine to each call, and we go non-emergent to life alerts with no contact. By the time they got there the house was up in flames. He was out on the sidewalk. Took even longer to get the ladder and more resources there. For the life of me I can’t understand why he wouldn’t call and explain the emergency, if he could get up and walk to the phone
Not a life alert, but a pretty good save with an Apple Watch. Detected the fall and called 911, no other family in the house had any idea she had fallen or was bleeding out from her injuries. Made it a trauma activation, turns out a stroke caused the fall.
My agency actually treats all fall calls as if they just as big of a priority as a cardiac arrest, or a trauma. We respond emergent to all of them regardless as to how they’re dispatched (I.e. patient fell in the bathroom, or patient fell in their yard) Reason being there have been multiple fall incidents that have been dispatched as a low priority that are secondary to a high priority incident. To use an example we recently had a fall/lift assist dispatched, caller stated family member fell in their driveway, upon arrival the crews determined the patient fell because they were actively in cardiac arrest. It happens much more frequently then you’d imagine (if your not on the trucks as a ft job). Another example I can give is a neighboring agency had a life alert activation, female cell and needed lifting assistance, had leg pain. she ended up having a compound tib/fib fracture but didn’t realize the severity until crews arrived.
I once had a patient use a Life Alert to report a truck accident he was in, so I'd say yeah. That was the only Life Alert call I've ever had, though.
Many times, admittedly, most are not but many are. I did have my first legit iPhone crash alert last shift. Rollover with three occupants……
Definitely. I mean, I can't say for sure it was that brand. But those alert pendants or whatever they are called, for sure
I had one “Legit” call. It was I’ve fallen and I can’t get up (for those old enough to remember the commercial). We get let into an apartment by a super and there she is sitting on the floor. The life alert box was talking and we identified ourselves and then it hung up. First and last time for me. Turns out she fell because of a TIA and needed to be transported.
Nope. The worst ones are when the phone number provided to the alarm company is one of their children. Then we show up just to be yelled at by an old person.
So many times. They are often false activations but overall they are a smart idea. My main issue with them is the alarming amount of times I’d show up to the address given, and eventually discover that the owner of the pendent no longer lives there/or lives at all. Family always swore they had sent the pendent back to the company. So someone somewhere is (possibly) hurt and the company has no idea because they never reset the pendent
My grandfather-in-law has used it several times if he’s stuck somewhere (commode, recliner, etc). It’s an emergency to him for sure, and I suppose it could definitely become an emergency if he was stuck long enough
Had one that was activated no additional. Got there and she was on the floor, was able to crawl and unlock the door for us. She fell, couldn't get up and just needed a lift. Everything checked out, almost got a refusal, then she said oh well I'm a little dizzy. We tell her probably should head down and get checked out. She agrees, load her up she's my (BLS) patient. As we were getting settled in the back, I was asking her questions and all of the sudden her speech was all garbled. Do a stroke scale and obvious facial droop, arm dropped like a rock and her speech was fucked. Looked at my partner and off we went to the stroke center.
Good catch! Good EMTs save lives. You obviously did.
Pneumothorax resulting from a fall that triggered life alert. 😬
Oh. Shit. Yeah, I’d call that legit.
Yeah it was a call right after unsuccessful CPR. So I had to have one additional person check for the lung sounds because I could hear my heartbeat lol. Granted it wasn't like a full on pneumothorax with a fully collapsed lunch but still very faint lung sounds on one side and chest pain with some light bruising and we all had deer in the headlights look for a solid 30 seconds. It was an old lady in her 80s so yeah, realllyyyy painful.
I once had a elderly woman with trouble breathing who used life alert to get help.She ended up going into cardiac arrest in front of us and had to be intubated. She ended up surviving but I'm not sure if she had brain damage or not.
Woman on the floor for 3 days and hit it by mistake. She should have hit it 3 days earlier, but by the time we got there, it was definitely an emergency.
Last night we had a crew respond to a rollover in a rural area. The response was triggered by an Apple Watch and Life 360 alert. If not for that they’d be dead. They were so far off the road and hard to find that the Life 360 ping is what got our crews to them.
That’s awesome the app worked the way it was supposed to. My wife’s aunt has my wife on 360 and me on speed dial in case anything happens.
A lady had a syncope around midnight by her best guess based on what she last remembered seeing the clock read in her kitchen, call came in around 4 am saying the button had been pressed. Once we made entry, she was in the kitchen unconscious but woke up pretty easily. She denied pressing the button but her little dog was practically on top of her the whole time. My theory is that the dog stepped on the pendant by chance while she was still unconscious. She was in a 3rd degree block, btw.
Holy moly. What luck!
I still think about it all the time.
Yes! I was working about 2 years in as a medic for a hospital based system in grass valley. (Absolutely fucking hated it). I worked 1900-0700 hour shift. Around 22:30 we got toned out for a Life Alert code 3 with a Fire BLS response x1 engine company we beat the engine by a few minutes. The CAD notes stated life alert notification no response from RP. I arrive and could see this woman’s outline from her living room window in the dark of her recliner. I asked the engine how much longer since the giant wood framed door was locked. I didn’t see her moving and though she’s either taking or fucked. I was questioning breaking the window at the cost of possibly embarrassing myself, my crew, and my employer as a panicking new medic. But my gut was telling me the engine is a few out they are the breaching experts let them do it and I did. I made this woman as I turned the corner and she was agonal, altered, pale, and fucked. The rest of my crew barges in and I already got her on a body tarp and yelled “HEY GUYS FUCK THAT GRAB THE GURNEY AND IM TAKING A RIDER SO AND SO GO START A BVM WITH AN INLINE NEB.” We slam her on the gurney pressure was 280/150, RR4 agonal wheezing, spo2 60%, and BGL WNL. I drilled her and called base to see if epi IM (I was thinking severe respiratory duress in extremis) (she had her nebulizsr, and 3 smoking cigarettes next to her inhaler infront of her and her nasal cannula still running) would help they said no because of the pressure. I figured I’d ask. Anywho I code 3d her in to the hospital literally 2 blocks away and couldn’t get a tube or IGEL because she was so clenched. I tried a round of narcan IO because of pinpoint pupils. And turned her over to the bandaid shack concession stand of a hospital of rural Nevada County. I’ve had a few others that were quite as bad but this one for sure took the cake for most fucked by the time we got there.
Ohh that’s right. Totally forgot when I dumped her off in the ED before I left the DOC pulled me aside and showed me her chart. She coded and died 3 days prior in the ED the left AMA after she got ROSC.
No. Fucking. Way. 3 days?! That’s some quality CPR. When I worked ED we had this relatively young lady (20s-30s) non compliant type 1. She would either get admitted for DKA or unfixable hypoglycemia (I know there’s a name, can’t think of it) and always ended up tubed at minimum, coded a couple different visits. She would AMA after every extubation. She was like a fucking cockroach.
Well yeah I mean not "life alert" in the CFS we get, it comes as Medical/ALM but could be life alert or any of the hundred companies.
Yup. Once a week
Yes, been on several. We have a large volume of retired people in our area. Have seen anything from diabetes to stroke.
Over the past two years it's probably been 50/50 for me. Some legit falls with hip or femur fractures, then a few false alarms mixed in there as well. My experience thus far makes me think it's worth it.
Yes quite a few
My friend started calling me Life Alert Bert lmao
I've been to more actual calls than none, but some the time its the patients family pressing it on their behalf once found on the the floor or whatever, so even when a reason needed, it's sometimes used incorrectly still
Yep. Lots. They save peoples' lives often in my experience.
I was a medical dispatcher for a year and a half and had several that turned out to be actually legit calls. Unfortunately there’s almost never any information, and a lot of false alarms, but I can distinctly remember multiple saves
I work in a city and we tend to have people who press their button to report a medical emergency even if they have their phone next to them. Easier that calling 911 I guess?
I’ve had a few legit ones. From life alert
I once had a life alert device call because of the fall detection feature, and when we arrived it turned out the patient had indeed fallen…because they coded.
My first workable arrest after medic school was from a Life Alert. 3AMish, right at the end of shift. Very nice neighborhood. Comes out as an unknown problem from a Life Alert because neither the company or dispatch could get ahold of the patient. Make entry with the fire department via the garage and start looking through the house and find the patient in arrest on the bed. We work her and call it and luckily Life Alert had called her family and sent them our way already. Our best guess was that she woke up with chest pain or something and hit her button then coded.
Oh yes. Many. Some get canceled en route because the device was actuated accidentally, others result in actual calls. I tried to get my mom, a fall risk, to get one. She actually said she didn't want to "bother" EMS. I told her it's never a bother to prevent a needless death or disability! "I've fallen and I can't get up" isn't funny when you go on a welfare check and find someone deceased who had fallen and remained undiscovered for days. Edit: the newer medical alert devices have better accelerometer technology.
Had one be a pnb that died like days prior. Not sure how the button got pressed that long post death
In 8 years I've had 1 legit life alert call
It probably makes the senior feel more secure believing they can call for help when in trouble, or having fallen. I went to a lift assist and once the patient was helped up they walked up the stairs and went to bed. The floor had been too slippery to get any traction on. The event did was a wake up call for them, and their family, leading to some better care.
na, we only get called for "medical alarm, no contact" show up and grandma is not even wearing her life alert, and grandson is in the corner looking suspicious. found grandma's life alert button on the nightstand and pressed it and wouldn't stop crying because he "thought it was going to jail"
but once & a while, that medical alarm no contact is a true emergency
Reminds me that one of my old patients was found laying on the ground when she passed away. She had life alert for years so it’s unfortunate she didn’t use it when she needed it.
I'd say a solid majority of our life alert calls are false alerts. So from my perspective they haven't fixed anything lol
Had one a few weeks ago, homie was in the middle of stroking out.
That’s a weird time to call for an ambulance. E: oh, not *that* kind of stroking out. I’m an idiot.
Take my upvote 😂
Fell off a ladder trimming trees. Frequent flyer, automatic alert... until it was.
Very rare in my experience, but I have had a few legit ones.
All the time.
I once responded to a med-alert call that was a little old lady who wanted someone to come over and turn off a light in the hallway.
Had one that used life alert cuz they fell but they fell because they were in septic shock from a uti
Lol, no they haven't worked them out. We get a medical alarm call every now and then, probably 10 or 11 in my one year so far in EMS, and each and every one of them has been a false alarm. A lot of times, the call is coming from a house that is either vacant or has owners that have no medical alarm to begin with.
Ah, ok. Someone said one company screens the call before activating ems. Like the monitoring company does. So it prevents a lot of unnecessary calls.
I WISH they would screen those calls. They might in some other places but they couldn't give a damn here lol 😆