At least once a month I see a news story about how someone has activated their medical alert system because a criminal has broken into their home.
While this isn’t one of the main uses for which a medical alert system is designed (they are designed to get you help if you have a medical emergency and can’t reach the telephone), it’s a perfectly acceptable use. In fact, the news stories I see usually indicate that the planned attack was foiled by the use of the medical alert.
Not only can the alert system get the police to your house, but often the mere fact that you are reporting the crime and talking to someone who will be sending help is enough to make the would-be robber leave the house.
But what kind of medical alarm will work best in this situation?
What you don’t want is a situation where your medical alert system is calling and calling to reach your family and friends, but no one is available to answer.
And you don’t want a situation where your base station speakerphone is out of range of your voice, so you can’t describe the problem. What happens in a situation like this is that the medical monitoring company will send an ambulance. 95% of the time this is just the right thing to do, but not if you’re being attacked or if your house is on fire. You also wouldn’t want the robber to be closer to the base station than you are, to the point where he or she could try to tell the responders that there’s really no problem.
(Believe it or not, I’ve read one news account where this happened. Creepily, the attacker was the older person’s child, and they tried to tell the medical monitoring responders that the older person was delusional.)
For my money, the best medical alert to have in a home-invasion situation is the MediPendant. That’s because the talk-through-the-pendant functionality means you can always have a clear conversation with the monitoring center, no matter where you are in the house, and even if you have to hide or move from room to room.
It’s not any more expensive than some popular medical alerts that don’t provide the same level of functionality.
Find out more at GetMedipendant.com.
My grandmother lives alone and has medical alert alarms installed. One night someone attempted to break into her house. She thought it was just an animal scratching at her back door. I don’t even want to think of what would have happened if the person got in. I never considered using the alert system to contact for help in other emergencies if needed. I will have to tell this to her just in case something happens again and she can’t get to a phone
Joe you are absolutely right. Many elderly people use their medical emergency alert systems to prevent crime or report a crime that is taking place. Authorities have even been able to use the recordings from medical alert devices as evidence in catching criminals. When the pendant is activated, monitoring center agents have also contacted authorities on behalf of elderly persons as well. Very good systems to use! Thanks for the great post Joe!
I will share your article on our Facebook Page as well!