Thank You Royal Canadian Mounted Police!!!!!

[W.J.Langholz]

All

Interesting afternoon to say the least. Lessened learned for sure.

My wife's folks live about and hour from us and they are 84 years old. My wife tries to make it over to see them 2x's a week and was just there Friday morning.
Today we get a call from her uncle around noon and he can't get ahold of them. Well the father in law was on his anual fishing trip to Flin Flon Manitoba, which we knew, so we called one of the neighbors to have them run next door to see what was up with the mother in law. Sure enough she fell sometime Friday afternoon shortly after my wife had left, and broke her hip. She laid on the floor until to day around noon.Wife was crying all the way to the hospital Mother-in-law is now in the hospital and doing well and will have surgery tomorrow afternoon.
Father-In-Law:(He has a cell phone but no service up there) I had a number from years back when I was at Snow Lake Monitoba for the RCMP so I called and a Very nice RCMP Lady answered and said she would go looking. She was about 70 miles away from where we thought he may be at. (No "spot") In the mean time I was thinking about taking the 206 north to meet up with them but being at the hospital and no access to a computer I wanted to look up on the 170 site about eAPIS which I had not done yet like George had recommended last year about now, (it's done now) BUT I was in conversation yesterday with another member John Renwick about crossing the border and he had given me his cell phone # and I had it in my bilfold (THANKS JOHN FOR YOUR HELP) so we went to work on that. Located our passports did a wx brief and was looking to leave first thing in the a.m. IF we could only locate father-in-law!!
In the meantime the doctor decided to wait to do surgery until they could build back up the fluids(she was dehydrated from being on the floor)

About this time "Jackie" the nice RCMP lady called me back, she had driven over to where I thought my father-in-law would be and caught up with him!!!!!! We talked for a brief momment on some repeter radio phone system and he is now on his way back.

SO A BIG THANK YOU TO THE ROYAL CANADIAN MOUNTED POLICE

1) eAPIS filed and done (passports Located)
2) "spot" ordered (will share with family trips)
3) "HELP I'm falling and can't get up" system ordered for in laws
4) send Jackie a box of chocolates tomorrow
5) Listen to George more often......... ya right
If you have elderly parents these maybe somethings for you to do too.


W>

[Kurt Aichele]

Another thing in addition to the Help, i'm falling......
If the elderly live alone, such as my Parents did, a good idea is to put a medication list with dosages and times on the refrigerator door, 1 list for each occupant, highlighted in red, along with emergency contact phone numbers, a copy of their picture I.D.,and a copy of their insurance cards. If/when the police/fire/paramedics are called, they can pull the info right off the refrigerator door and take it with them. I'm not sure if this is SOP around the country, but it seems to work well here. This has saved both of my Parents numerous times, plus the medical personnel will love you for this. Don't forget to keep a master copy so you will have it again, if needed.

[Kurt Aichele]

One more thought. We have in our city, a device called a "Knox Box". It is a small safe-like box about 4 inches square and 2-3" thick that hangs over the top of the front door, accessible from the outside. You put the house key in the box and the police/fire dept. lock it with a special key. If the Help, I'm falling alarm goes off and the fire/police come and there is no answer, they use the special key to get access to the house key. This prevents them from wasting time walking around the house trying to get in, or even breaking the door down. Not sure if it's available in your area, but check with your local Police/Fire Dept. The box is virtually impenetrable without the special key, so security is not a problem.

[W.J.Langholz]

Kurt

Thanks for both your post, both are excellent. Generally they are not seen in the E.R. by their normal Dr. and a list of drugs and ins papers would be excellent to have. The Knock Box is also and excellent idea. We have them availible from our local Fire dept for other reasons but have not thought about it for this ap. Thanks again.
My wife just called (10pm) and mother in law just got out of surgery and is doing fine

W.