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.