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Personal Alarm
Personal Safety Alarms for Women
A personal alarm is a gadget that is used for alerting contacts like friends, relatives or neighbors in an emergency situation.
It could also be used to alert monitoring services. It is a small electronic device that can be held in your hand. Its principal function is to give out a loud alarm sound that sounds like a siren. It can be activated with the help of either a button or a tag that sets off the siren when it is pulled. Some personal safety alarms will emit a loud and intermittent shrill kind of whistle. The whole idea is to grab attention of people around you to scare off assailants or attackers. The sound that is created by this alarm can distract and disorient the intruders.
The volume of this personal alarm may vary from one model to another. Some keychain whistle alarm models can emanate sounds even up to one hundred and thirty decibels. Few personal alarms also come with light emitting diode technology. They have lights that can serve a dual purpose of serving as a normal lighting device and of deterring intruders. It has to be noted that a personal alarm has to be used wisely. You have to be sure that there are people around you to take notice of the warning sound; otherwise, it may also put you in danger when the intruder realizes that you are alone and helpless.
(Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_alarm)
Different Kinds of Personal Alarms
There are two kinds of personal alarms. They can be of the non-monitoring and monitoring types. With the non-monitoring types, you will come across two separate types. These are whistles and automated telephone systems.
The whistles are alarms that are operated by battery. They emit a shrill and high pitched sound. Lights will flash when they are activated. The whistles possess a range which is limited. People using such alarms will have to depend on persons that are within hearing range and who are able and willing to help.
Keychain whistle alarms can draw attention to crisis in personal safety. They are small and light in weight. They are easy to carry and they are an ideal form of self defense for women and the elderly. They can be used either as panic or medical alarms.
Auto-dialers or automated telephone systems will dial numbers that have been preset. They are not electronically connected to any monitoring center. They depend on persons who are willing to help and who are available on that preset number. These numbers are programmed into their system and they transmit a message which has been pre-recorded. It is essential to make sure that the message is audible enough and it is clear and the information in the message is up-to-date.
These types of systems will depend on the user and his network of people who could be trusted and who could be called for help. This system will continue to dial those programmed numbers until the call gets answered. With most systems, there is an acknowledging feature available. It requires the person who has answered the call to press a specific button to allow the system to know that the call has got answered by a real person and not a voicemail or an answering machine.
Sometimes, it is possible to program `000’ into an auto-dialer long with any other number but it is essential to understand that `000’ calls from such automated devices cannot guarantee a response from emergency services. This is because the `000’ system will require a person and not an automatic message to make that `000’ call. The operator of emergency services should be able to confirm and discuss the details of this emergency with the caller.
Among the monitored personal alarms, the most commonly followed system is an attachment to your home phone. It receives signals from a pendant or some other device that is worn by the caller or user. These signals are sent to a monitoring center. A pre-agreed response will be placed into action after calling the user to confirm that the warning has not been activated accidentally. The information can then be passed on to relevant service and security centers.
Example of the effectiveness of a Personal Alarm
A real world example could be given of a college student who almost became a victim of a rapist in one of the by-lanes near her house while returning back from college. She described that she was so terrified when she saw her assailant that she got paralyzed with fear and could not even scream as her voice refused to come out. Luckily, she remembered that she was carrying the whistle personal alarm in her bag and decided to use that in the nick of time. The whistle did the screaming for her at almost one hundred and twenty decibels and saved her. It is important to know that assailants and rapists are scared of attracting attention as it is their biggest fear. So, this rapist scooted and left her alone.