A North Texas family is suing ADT because their father’s wrist-worn ‘panic button’ system failed and was not replaced immediately. They allege that as a result he was unable to summon help as he lay dying. Story from WFAA.com.
3 thoughts on “'Panic button' failed dying father”
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Reality
It is a shame the gentleman in question died. However surely common sense also applies. If a person is at high risk then in the absence of their alarm he should have had 24hr care.
How many panic type alarm systems are not working at anyone time I wonder? This is the reason to encourage the resident to test on a regular basis. Weekly should be a minimum.
As you get no advanced warning of a failure. As for the argument the devices should self test/ more robust, yes all this is achievable but at a cost and how many councils would want the increased cost.
PERS Failure
If you read it, the man was found by his wife on the floor, dead. It does not say how much time passed between his being seen as “fine” and then; if there were signs of struggle; quite conceivably he could have had a massive stroke or coronary and was dead in a minute. No PERS would have helped. It looks to me as if the courts will decide liability on this.
When I was with my previous company (Living Independently) we had estimates that PERS buttons failed to work about 1/3 of the time. However we based this on failure to press the alert (e.g. the senior was not wearing the button in bed, the shower etc. or was not near the box), fell down unconscious, or was too stunned or incapable of pushing the button when down, not actual malfunction.
PERS and Other products
We are all going to die. The idea/concept that ‘somebody has to pay’ upon death is one of the greatest examples of why our country is going down the tubes. Damn lawyers. And damn those greedy enough to want to make money on the inevitable!