In some communities there are safety measures available for people who live alone, particularly if they are middle-aged or older.
Here our county council on the aging has a system where you have to call the hotline phone number every morning by 10 AM to let them know you are OK. If they don’t hear from you, someone is sent out to check.
There is also the reverse service. Someone from the office will call you every day to check on health, safety and concerns.
This does not address the dreaded emergency, of course.
My mother lived in a facility in area that provides people (for a monthly fee) with a “link to life” alarm button they wore around there necks. The morning my mother had the massive stroke that took her three days later, she had a few seconds of premonition and was able to press the alarm.
The nurse was in the apartment within five minutes and had an ambulance there shortly thereafter.
There are various similar medical alert services available. Here’s one
Get fast access to help, 24 hours a day, seven days a week
Lifeline with AutoAlert will automatically call for help if a fall is detected
Lifeline is easy to use and can help you remain independent in your own home
Unlike a cell phone, Lifeline is waterproof, always charged, and within reach to call for help.
Eight years ago I took a very bad fall backwards down some steps off my deck. I knocked myself unconscious and woke up several hours later in bed, bloody and with broken bones and bruises. Luckily, I was able to get to the phone and call for help, but to this day, I have no memory of those hours or how I got from an outside deck up a flight of stairs and into bed.
I spent 6 days in hospital, 2 in ICU with two broken ribs, huge enough bruises for the police to suspect that I had been beaten, a torn rotator cuff, a subdural hematoma and a broken stapes bone that left me partially deaf in one ear.
It seems a distant memory and I don’t fret much about living alone or carry my cell phone with me always. (There’s never a signal here, anyway.) It’s in the laps of the gods.