For lone workers such as security officers and engineers, having peace of mind that their safety is being monitored through lone worker safety devices, and apps, with a 24/7/365 Alarm Receiving Centre (ARC) can give them the ability to travel to remote locations and do their jobs, in the knowledge that if anything does happen, they have back-up, says Reliance Protect, which reports a recent ‘red alert’.
One Sunday morning, in a remote location outside Milton Keynes, an alarm was picked up by the Reliance Protect ARC. The operator listened to the live audio from the safety device, spoke to the lone worker, a maintenance engineer returning from a job with a major retailer, about his emergency, and they discovered that the engineer, Simon, was having a heart attack.
The engineer had pulled over to the side of a dual carriageway as soon as he felt the symptoms. Having suffered a cardiac arrest previously, he understood what was happening and that he urgently needed medical attention. Phil Bestington, ARC Manager at Reliance High-Tech, takes up the story: โThe alarm came into the ARC control room just after 10am on Sunday, with a gentleman in clear distress heard over the lone worker device connection. Itโs amazing that his first instinct, on realising the severity of his situation, was to reach for the red alert button on his lone worker safety device. It really showed his faith in the system.โ
The operator connected to the ambulance service on Simonโs behalf. The two-way audio connection between the lone worker device and ARC control centre allowed the operator to talk to Simon while he waited for the ambulance to arrive, keeping Simonโs phone line available for the emergency services to call him if needed.
GPS coordinates critical
As Simon was in a remote location, there was a risk that the ambulance would not find him. However, the lone worker safety device has GPS and Wi-Fi location, and integration with the locating service What3Words, which the ARC operator relayed to the ambulance service to assist them in locating the pulled-over vehicle.
Bestington adds:ย โWithout narrowing down the area through our lone worker โs location technologies, it would have wasted valuable minutes in responding to Simon. With the functionality we simply had to give the exact coordinates and WhatThreeWords of the lone worker safety device, and the ambulance knew exactly where to go, within just a few metres, on the dual carriageway.โ
Emergency response training
The training of ARC operators allowed them to understand what was happening to Simon and escalate as needed to the emergency services and Simonโs employer. ARC operators undergo training in the technologies, processes, and emergencies that they may encounter in the 24/7/365 control room. Operators receive alarms and alerts from connected devices, can access the live two-way audio (and indeed view live video streams from body-worn cameras), and view real-time location information.
Bestington says: โOur operators are the best in the business thanks to their ability to quickly understand the dynamics of a situation and decide on the best response. They usually deal with threats against workers, theft, and trespassing, requiring a police response. This unusual medical emergency shows the resilience and adaptability of ARC operators, with the team immediately taking action to get Simon the urgent care he needed.โ
During the response, contact with Simon was maintained throughout, so he remained calm while waiting for the ambulance to arrive. Bestington adds: โLone workers and their managers need to know that if they push that red button, we will be there to support them.” The Reliance ARC is accredited to security and response standards, including the BS8484 British Standard Lone Worker Code of Practice (allowing for a fast-tracked Police Level 1 response), and there is a secondary ARC site which can be operational within minutes if needed, for coverage of all lone workers and devices on the system. Time matters; the average time to pick up an alarm is around 3.6 seconds.
Simon received the medical care he needed. On arrival at the hospital, he underwent emergency surgery and is recovering.ย From the hospital, Simon expressed his thanks in an email to Reliance: โI want to thank the team for being there when I needed them. It was a life-or-death situation, and Iโm fortunate that the team responded to me quickly and got the ambulance to my van.โ
