SERVICE EXTENDS LOOP OF SECURITY

On a sultry summer evening Marie Anderson went about her evening rituals in her Jackson home. She was in for a dark surprise.

Anderson fell.

She likened the ensuing sensation of helplessness to "being lost in your home."

Anderson credits God and a decision she made about 10 years ago with her ability to relate the story nine months later.

"Between God and Lifeline I'm alive today," she said recently after recounting the events that left her with broken legs and hips.

She has a concise answer for persons who inquire about the home communicator and the little button she wears on a chain about her neck. "I tell them now, I say, `It saved my life.'"

Anderson was among the first participants in the Lifeline program launched locally in the early 1980s by St. Francis Medical Center.

Today, 106 persons subscribe to the personal response system, said Pat Miller, director of volunteer services at St. Francis. Miller oversees the Lifeline operation.

"It's probably one of the best services we can offer to the elderly to keep them independent," Miller said. "This keeps them independent, gives them a very secure feeling and at the same time, it gives their families that little extra feeling of security."

That sense of well-being is based on technology developed by Lifeline Systems Inc. The Massachusetts company, founded in 1974, is a leading provider of personal response systems in the health care industry.

The system is comprised of two components: a small, portable personal help button and a lifeline communicator. The button can be worn on a neck chain, on a wrist strap or attached to clothing. Connected to a telephone line, the compact communicator sends a call for help when activated by a button on the unit or by a push of the portable button.

Anderson was not wearing her personal help button when she suffered her fall while preparing for bed. Had she been wearing it, she could have summoned immediate aid.

Instead, the home communicator automatically notified emergency room personnel at St. Francis Medical Center - the answering port for the local Lifeline system - after Anderson had failed to check in after a 24 hour period.

Help was immediately dispatched and, according to Anderson, emergency aid arrived in the nick of time. Her major organs had begun shutting down.

"If I hadn't had that thing and it hadn't set off like it did, I wouldn't be alive right now," she asserted. "I had four phones in my home and I couldn't get to any of them."

Under the watchful eye of her physician, Anderson has recovered remarkably well. She is ambulatory with the aid of a walker and retains a large measure of her independence. She resides with a friend.

While his injuries were less severe, Henry Ochs of Cape Girardeau understands Anderson's despair at being unable to summon help after a fall.

"I hollered but nobody heard me," Ochs said, outlining his brush with a potentially serious accident last October.

While cleaning his garage, Ochs tripped over a cord, falling between the wall and his car. "I couldn't walk," Ochs said. "I pulled myself to the edge of the garage, pulled myself up at the side of the garage and moved over to a chair."

Eventually, he managed to make it to a telephone to call his daughter.

He was rushed to a hospital and though he escaped the accident with troublesome aches and bruises, Ochs knows it was a close call. Heeding the advice of a neighbor, he put his name on the Lifeline waiting list. Ochs' Lifeline equipment was installed less than a month ago.

Nurturing a lifelong appreciation of nature, Ochs particularly enjoys the freedom that Lifeline allows. It can be activated from any point in his expansive yard, which he tends with care.

The value of such independence is beyond measure, asserts Judith Crow, also a new Lifeline subscriber in Cape Girardeau.

"You have to be able to be on your own, stand on your own feet as much as possible," Crow reflected, "but on the other hand, you have to be able to accept help when you need it."

Her streak of fiery independence is perhaps both genetic and learned. "Mother taught me never to say `I can't,'" Crow said, flashing her engaging smile. "It's not in my vocabulary."

Cradling the button in her hand, Crow, who has cerebral palsy aggravated by arthritis and other physical difficulties, said Lifeline provides her "an added dimension of security."

"I had been thinking of getting Lifeline for several years," she said, "but I thought other people needed it worse than I."

In recent months, a friend encouraged her to look into the program. Unbeknownst to Crow, her friends in the Zonta club learned of her inquiries. She received her Lifeline system less than a month ago, complements of the organization.

Appreciative of the gesture, Crow acknowledges its potentially lifesaving worth. Crow has a phone within hand's reach most all the time. Nevertheless, she noted, "Even though I had a phone, if I were hurt badly enough, they might not understand what I was saying."

Lifeline addresses that possibility. "There will either be help if they push the button, or if they don't push the button every 24 hours someone will be sent to check on them," Miller said.

After the home communicator is activated, either by the push of a button or automatically if it has not been reset within a 24-hour period, emergency room personnel immediately call the residence. If the individual is unable to respond and define the nature of help needed, aid is immediately dispatched.

Lifeline subscribers supply St. Francis Medical Center with a list of three responders, Miller explained. Typically, the responders are close friends or family members who reside nearby. "If there's a true emergency then ER immediately dispatches an ambulance to them," Miller said. "They make their own choice as to what hospital to come to."

If it is determined that an ambulance or other emergency services are not needed, then emergency room personnel alert a responder about the kind of help required. A responder is also alerted in case of emergencies.

Helen Newman used to think a telephone could fulfill any emergency link she might need. "When my family started talking to me about Lifeline, I said, 'I don't need that, I've got a telephone right here and I can get help,'" Newman said, pausing, "well, I found out I couldn't."

Newman, who has had a Lifeline system in her Jackson home for two years, used it for the first time last summer.

"In the middle of the night, I had a perforated stomach ulcer attack," Newman related. "I couldn't get to the phone."

She activated her Lifeline alert. "I answered them on the monitor and told them I needed help," Newman said, "and they called the ambulance."

"I was glad that I had that little machine," Newman said. "That was a case instead of mother knowing best, that one of my daughter's knew best," she said, chuckling.

More people in the Cape Girardeau area will soon be getting Lifeline installed in their homes. "We have just purchased 30 new units that are going to be going in within the next couple of months," Miller said. "We already have a waiting list for them."

A new waiting list will be compiled after the current requests are filled.

The new units, which cost between $600 and $700 each, should meet the current waiting list demand, she said. There is no installation fee and "we are only charging $10 a month for this service," Miller said.

Miller, volunteer services secretary Nancy Beckett and about four volunteers take care of explaining, installing and testing the systems.

The St. Francis project extends throughout the local telephone area. "We don't go long distance," Miller noted. Helping people retain their independence with an added measure of security is the chief aim of the personal response system.

For many who use the system, it is the added security that strikes nearest home. As Henry Ochs explained, "I know it's there if I need it. I just keep my fingers crossed and hope that I never have to use it."