Receiving emergency help quickly and easily in life-threatening situations is essential but it’s often forgotten that there are facilities available to make the call to and will always be available. For many people that work alone there is a far greater risk that they could encounter life-threatening situations or other situations where they may need assistance and so need reassurance that should the time come assistance will be at hand. Employers also have a certain amount of responsibility to ensure that they reduce and manage the risk that their employees may face in the performance of their duties.
MY-SOS has been developed to offer assurance to people at risk through a personal alarm that is tough, small and simple to use. It is aimed primarily at people that work alone and VIP market where individuals are at risk of violent attack, but is suitable for many other applications. MY-SOS constantly monitors its location through the use of global satellite positioning (GPS) and stores the information in an internal memory system.
Pressing the large red and green buttons simultaneously on the hand set sends an alarm call via GSM that includes the unique identification number of the device and positional coordinates to a 24 hour response centre. Software at the response centre immediately associates the ID number to personal details of the owner and displays the information with a map pin-pointing the current location of the user. At the same time a microphone is in the device and can be automatically turned on so that an operator can ‘listen in’ to help determine the situation, there is also a speaker that can be used for two way communication.
The operator will inform the relevant emergency authority immediately giving essential information about the person using the device and where they are, which in many cases may not be known by the user. Also if MY-SOS moves more than 30 meters within a specified amount of time after an alarm call has been received it will send another message to the response centre giving the new co-ordinates. This will ensure that the helping authority always knows the position of the person in distress even if they move.