The Founders

Karen

My name is Karen and Personal Safety Net wasn’t my idea but as soon as Rebecca told me about it, I thought it was fabulous. I’ve had three circumstances in my life that would have been so much easier had I been able to use it! My mother was widowed in 2006 when she was 72 and still very (VERY) independent.

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But she had a couple of health issues and now lived alone. What if she fell? What if she got sick? So, I did what every rational adult child does – I called her twice a day, every day in the morning and in the evening. Now, my mother loved me a lot, but she didn’t want to talk to me twice a day. Every day. I mean, really. That is a bit much. If she had Personal Safety Net, I would know that she had checked in that day and that all was well, and I could call her when I had something interesting to talk about instead of hounding her twice a day.
My sister lives without a life partner but has a roommate. But she and her roommate see each other only on occasion – different schedules, different jobs, etc. So, especially with Covid-19 being a thing, I’m now wanting to check in with HER every day because she could be sick, and her roommate wouldn’t even know. The only problem is, while my mother and I were VERY close, my sister and I are not as close. If I call her every day, she’s gonna get tired of that really quick! If she had Personal Safety Net, I would know that she had checked in every day and I could call/text her once or twice a week and not worry that something had happened, while her roommate wasn’t around.
The third example happened to a friend of mine – her husband and father-in-law are from Germany and the father-in-law didn’t speak English at all, only German. Father and Son would talk a couple of times a week but not on a regular schedule and Dad was in good shape. But Dad got sick, really sick and called 911. EMS came and got him and took him to the hospital but didn’t get his wallet. He was unable to communicate because no one with EMS or the hospital spoke German. He got sicker and sicker and eventually passed away. Son tried calling a couple of times, but it wasn’t unusual for Dad not to answer if he was gardening, shopping, whatever. The Sherriff Department finally knocked on my friend’s door. Her father-in-law had passed away a few days after EMS picked him up and took him to the hospital. It took the Sherriff’s department days to find my friends. If Dad had Personal Safety Net, they would have known that he didn’t checked in. They would have gone to his house. They would have been able to translate for the doctors and maybe there would have been a different ending.
This is not an emergency app. It is an “if I get really sick, or if I fall and can’t get to the phone” eventually my three closest contacts will know that something is up because they will get a text that I didn’t check in. They will call me and if I don’t answer they will call my neighbor, my landlord, my boss, or they will come by my home to make sure that I’m okay. It gives peace of mind to the person using the app and the loved ones of that person as well. The best part of the whole thing is that your contacts don’t have to do ANYTHING except check on you if they receive a text message saying that you failed to check in.

Rebecca Kavanaugh

Hi, I am Rebecca, one of the founders of the Safety Net app. You may wonder, how did I come up with this idea? For years I worked with animals (mostly dogs and horses), and that is something that you normally do on your own schedule without a lot of other people around. One rule in most barns that I worked at was that you never went off alone on a horse without telling someone where you were going and what time you would be back.

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Once I had my own barn and land, I was by myself on the property most of the time and would leave my ‘where and how long’ note on a dry erase board so that my family or students knew where and when to look for me. It’s important that others know when to check up on you because life happens and sometimes things don’t go according to plan. I knew then that an app that could help with this would be very useful. It is then that the idea sparked but what lit a fire under me happened after my divorce (talking about “not according to the plan”).
In 40 years, this was the first time I was living alone (my dog and cat did not count since they need me to take care of them). I was worried about my fur babies and what would happen to them if anything untoward happened to me so I arranged with my sister that I would call her everyday by 8 PM. If I did not call her, she would go to my apartment, take care of my babies, then look for me. I called her every day. EVERY DAY…for 2 years. The first year worked out just fine. The second, she started not answering her phone and one day she complained to me that I was too needy. She asked me why I called every day when I had nothing new to talk about. I reminded her of our original agreement. She had forgotten the reasons for the calls. She would not have checked on me or my fur babies if I hadn’t called as we initially agreed. She probably would have been relieved that I did not call her!
At this point my idea solidified and I started talking to people that I thought could help me make the app. It took 6 more years before I mentioned it in front of the right person, Karen, the other founder. And here we are today. I hope you like this app as much as I do. Personally, I love the logo. The rainbow of color, okay, 3 colors, the fact that 3 people are contained within the heart, just like the user selects up to 3 contacts. This app has been designed to give you as much privacy as possible while still giving you the peace of mind that if something unexpected happens someone will know to check on you. It is the only app I know of that does something when you do nothing. And believe it or not that was incredibly hard to do. Our app developers have been great but the things we asked of them were not easy by giving the app the ability to work independently of permissions (don’t need them) or begging family or friends to ‘join’. Ahh, the sweet smell of freedom.
Thanks for visiting with me. I hope you have a fantastic day!

Stay Safe with Personal Safety Net

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