| Life Alert Emergency Response | |
| Type: | Personal Emergency Response Services |
| Location: | Encino, California |
| Founders: | Isaac Shepher, Zohar Loshitzer, and Arik Amir |
Life Alert Emergency Response, Inc., known as life alert, is a nationwide[1] American device service company, with headquarters in Encino, California, USA, which provides services that help young and old elderly people contact emergency services. The company was founded in 1987. The company's system consists of a main unit and a small wireless help button that is worn by the user at all times. Former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop appeared in commercials for Life Alert starting in 1992, stating that he used one. He remained a spokesman for the company until his death in 2013.
Life Alert's alarm monitor phone device offering includes an answering machine unit with a emergency call button, a call cancel button, an on off switch and a wall plug in, connected to a telephone line and a pendant-shaped device, typically worn on a necklace or a wristband. Pressing a button on the pendant contacts a Life Alert call center, and a Life Alert dispatcher then contacts 9-1-1. The company requires service contract with a minimum term of three years. Some people call life alert and have them transferred to their dispatch office and a 911 operator [2]
In September 1991, nine district attorneys[3] [4] sued Life Alert for high pressure sales tactics and misleading consumers about how the Life Alert system sends calls to emergency service providers.[5]
The lawsuit said that Life Alert had falsely claimed that its system had special access 911, that local emergency agencies react faster to Life Alert calls compared to other 911 calls, and that Life Alert customers receive preferential treatment from public emergency service providers. District attorneys said that Life Alert's sales representatives had fabricated fictional stories about victims of crime in order to instill fear and anxiety in people.[6] Life Alert's sales training manual encouraged sales representatives to say that people were in danger without the system and to "go for the emotional sale, not a logical sale."[7] [8] Life Alert's sales representatives would initially quote an inflated price and then quoted a lower price in order to make the person think they were receiving a large discount.[9] Prosecutors said that Life Alert sold systems for $1,700 to $5,000 that could be rented from local hospitals for $25 per month, and that the systems did little more than relaying calls to 911 operators who then called for emergency service providers.[10]
Aside from the grey-haired fallen lady, another situation illustrated in ads involved "a man suffers a heart attack, alone in his garden." The ads are not being restricted: it is the "deceptive sales pitches" that are the focus of a court injunction.[11] In response to the lawsuit, a representative said that Life Alert is a burglar-alarm company[12] that offers an additional communication device.[13] The company later claimed in court that, while there may have been some isolated incidents of exaggerations by salespeople, there was no evidence of a pattern of such practice by the company.[14]
The phrase "I've fallen and I can't get up" was originally used in 1987 television commercials and trademarked in September 1992 by LifeCall, which went out of business in 1993.[16] After LifeCall's trademark expired, a similar phrase, "Help, I've fallen and I can't get up!", was registered by Life Alert, in October 2002.[17] The classic commercial featuring this slogan was ranked number one by USA Today in its 2007 list of the most memorable TV commercials from the past 25 years.[18]
"I've fallen, and I can't get up!" is a catchphrase of the late 1980s and early 1990s popular culture based upon a line from a United States-based television commercial. This line was spoken by actress Dorothy McHugh in a television commercial for a medical alarm and protection company called LifeCall.[19]
The motivation behind the systems is that subscribers, mostly seniors as well as disabled people, would receive a pendant which, when activated, would allow the user to speak into an audio receiving device and talk directly with a dispatch service, without the need to reach a telephone. The service was designed to appeal particularly to seniors who lived alone and who might experience a medical emergency, such as a fall, which would leave them alert but immobile and unable to reach the telephone.
In 1989,[20] LifeCall began running commercials that contained a scene wherein an elderly woman, identified by a dispatcher as "Mrs. Fletcher", uses the medical alert pendant after having fallen in the bathroom. After falling, Mrs. Fletcher speaks the phrase "I've fallen, and I can't get up!", after which the dispatcher informs her that he is sending help.
Edith Fore (née Edith Americus DeVirgilis; 1916–1997) portrayed Mrs. Fletcher.[21] [22] Although a stuntperson performed the fall itself, Fore said that she created the "I've fallen" line while discussing the accident with LifeCall.
By 1990, the Phoenix New Times reported that "From coast to coast, from playground to barroom, an enfeebled whine rings out across the land. All together now: 'I've fallen . . . and I can't get up!'" The catchphrase appeared on t-shirts, novelty records, and in standup comedy. In 1992, a sample of the catchphrase was featured in parody artist "Weird Al" Yankovic's song "I Can't Watch This" (a parody of M.C. Hammer's "U Can't Touch This"). The phrase was parodied in several television shows including The Golden Girls, Family Matters, Roseanne, and The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.[23] In 1993, Gary Larson drew a Far Side cartoon featuring the "I've fallen, and I can't get up" building. A sample of the phrase was also featured in a track used only in the Japanese Sega Saturn version of Fighting Vipers when the player is in the training stage.
According to the United States Patent and Trademark Office, after first applying in October 1990, LifeCall registered the phrase "I've fallen, and I can't get up" as a trademark in September 1992 until its status was cancelled in 1999 (LifeCall went out of business in 1993).[24] In October 2002, the similar phrase "Help! I've fallen, and I can't get up!" became a registered trademark of Life Alert Emergency Response, Inc. The registration was cancelled in May 2013.[25] A new registration was granted in May 2014.[26] Life Alert had filed for the phrase "Help, I've fallen & can't get up!" in March 2001, but the application was abandoned in November 2001.[27] In June 2007, the phrase "I've fallen, and I can't get up!" also became a registered trademark of Life Alert.[28] Both phrases are currently used on their website as well as in their commercials.[29]
Even when an offer is not fraudulent,[31] another consideration is whether, even if the company supports it, their phone link to the center will still exist.[32]
AARPs suggested cutoff regarding older devices and services is that if it's "from 2012 or before" it is "almost certainly on borrowed time."[33]