Emergency Networking

[Chuckanut]

Here's an interesting idea that would put the Internet to good use and save some lives. It would alert local volunteers to things like abducted children and people in medical distress.

Wall Street Journal

It's behind a paywall so here are a few quotes:

Quote:

I recently had a Zoom call with Elizabeth Smart—yes, that Elizabeth Smart, who in 2002 was abducted as a 14year-old and held for nine months in Utah, a harrowing experience for her and her family. <snip> She connected with an Oregon-based tech company to help design and promote its Q5id Guardian app, which makes use of crowdsourcing. When a child is missing, the app sends out localized alerts to a network of volunteers, all verified to avoid potential predators on the system.

Quote:

Israeli entrepreneur Eli Beer. As a youth, he volunteered as an emergency medical worker and watched a child choke to death before an ambulance stuck in traffic showed up, even though a doctor lived in the same building as the child. So he created United Hatzalah, a crowd of volunteers who respond to emergencies, often on bikes or “ambucycles” loaded with medical equipment to avoid traffic. There are more than 6,200 volunteers in Israel who can respond within 90 seconds to medical emergencies and terrorist

[skyking1]

That is a good example of the decentralization that seems to be more common. Look at all the AED's we see now, and folks carrying narcan, etc.
I watched a 60 minutes story on emergency medical services in France, where the doctor was the first person on the scene. It looked like it worked very well.
DW is a capital buyer for a hospital system, and she has purchased equipment for many standalone Emergency Departments. They have much faster patient service times and are cropping up all over.

[folivier]

My DW and I joined the local fire dept. at our mountain cabin. Mostly guys around my age. The vast majority of incidents are medical. We're very fortunate to have about 7 residents who have passed and are registered as first responders. Plus a couple EMT's who live in our remote (1 hour from anywhere) mountain community.
My DW had an incident one night and passed out. I called 911 and was still on the phone when our local FR's banged on the door! They were there in less than 5 minutes from calling 911. They stabilized my DW until the ambulance could get there about an hour later, then an hour ride to the local hospital. Thankfully she was fine after this.
Yes if you can help in any way please do. DW and I are only in an auxiliary capacity but we can help with carrying patients, traffic control, bringing a vehicle or equipment to an incident. Any of this allows our FR's to respond much quicker.

[teetee]

We have the police alert SMS and the community on Patch/ Nextdoor app for missing kids/teenager alerts. One of the few things that is actually helpful from the network technology.

[qwerty3656]

Isn't the "amber alert" a national thing? Maybe expand that?

[rk911]

Quote:

Originally Posted by qwerty3656 Isn't the "amber alert" a national thing? Maybe expand that?

yeah, it is. the amber alerts are broadcast thru local radio/tv stations and on the NOAA Weather Alert receivers if the radio user has chosen to receive those alerts.