(NYT) A Panic Button for the Phone

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On November 22, 2015

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Samantha Nelson was only 32 when she died after a heart attack in 2010. Ms. Nelson, who had been on the phone with her mother and sister just a couple of hours before she died, had pledged to call back after she took a bath, but had not been heard from. Then the call came. Ms. Nelson was frantic; she had just awaked in a tub filled with scalding water with little clue as to how she got there.

Christoph Hitz

Ms. Nelson’s mother and sister urged her to call 911, but she wanted to call her husband first. He headed straight home, but when he arrived, she was already dead. Her next-door neighbor, an emergency medical technician, was home at the time.

By JONAH BROMWICH

Ms. Nelson’s brother, Michael, a neuroscientist in Brooklyn, has taken it upon himself to make an app to ensure that what happened to his sister happens to fewer people. On a phone screen, his app, iUDAME, is little more than a large gray button. When the button is pressed, the app can alert 911 as well as family members to the distressed user’s location. (Ayúdame is Spanish for “help me.”)

Mr. Nelson says a person who might be facing a traumatic event — even death — would sense that something was wrong and would be able to hit a panic button.

If people had something like that,” he said, “then we’d be able to save a lot of people.”

The iUDAME app is financed entirely by Mr. Nelson, and it is best seen as a manifestation of his grief. It is available free for a trial period; users are then asked to pay $1.99 monthly.

Not wanting to crank-call an ambulance (or to alarm my family), I tested the app to the point of actually letting the button go through. Using it consists mostly of entering information about emergency contacts and frequent haunts. After you press the button, which you must open the app to gain access to, you are given five seconds in which to reconsider. Simply pressing the button again cancels the call.

Mr. Nelson said he had not informed the city’s emergency response officials about the app.

When asked about the possibility of hypochondriacs’ calling for help when they are less than distressed, he said the five-second countdown should be enough to deter those people.

It seems reasonable to wonder whether an app — especially one that costs $1.99 every month — is necessary when its core function essentially duplicates a free emergency service. But Mr. Nelson said that iUDAME, with its single-button operation, provided a crucial service.

“You can’t always dial 911,” he said. “If you have someone in the room causing distress, you can’t really call. If you’re about to have a seizure, you don’t really have time to stop your seizure and give 911 a call.”

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