Real-Life Incident: Steve & Matt’s Story – Rapid Response Saves Child’s Life

Steve and Matt, field technicians with a leading energy provider in the midwestern United States, had just finished a routine maintenance call in a quiet, suburban neighborhood. Matt was completing paperwork in the truck while Steve was cleaning their tools when suddenly they heard panicked screaming.

The mother came running out of the house holding her 18-month son screaming 'He’s not breathing!' and Matt got out of that truck as fast as he could to help.

Steve and Matt raced over to the distraught mother. Matt cradled the child’s limp, unresponsive body in his arms, while Steve pulled the red emergency SOS latch on his Blackline G7 safety device to call for help. Although Matt found faint breathing sounds and a shallow heartbeat, the child’s eyes were rolling back in his head, and he was unconscious.

Seconds Matter When Lives on the Line

At Blackline Safety’s in-house Safety Operations Centre, Steve’s device is monitored 24/7 by professionally trained agents. As soon as Steve pulled the SOS latch, an SOC agent received the alert, and—in less than a minute—called him via his device's two-way communication. Steve explained that he was with a child in acute distress and needed immediate medical assistance. 

“Send EMS to me right now!” Steve said to the agent.

The agent wasted no time and immediately contacted the local EMS dispatch to request police and medical assistance. 

“I can give you the exact latitude and longitude,” Blackline Safety’s SOC agent said to EMS dispatch.

The agent provided Steve’s exact location based on the coordinates provided by his G7, expediting the dispatch of emergency services which happened within 90 seconds of the alert first coming in.

Steve and the SOC agent maintained their two-way communication, with the agent providing guidance and critical updates until EMS arrived on-site.

Offering reassurance, the agent said, “I’m just going to stay with you.”

While it didn’t take long for the ambulance to arrive, it felt like the longest minutes of the two men's lives. They’d been in emergency situations before, but never like this one and never with a child.

Right Place at the Right Time

Thanks to Steve’s quick actions with his G7’s emergency SOS feature and with the support of the SOC agent, paramedics arrived at the scene and the boy became responsive. Later, the men learned the child had experienced a febrile seizure. While the parents were too overcome in the moment to say much, the father later reached out to the energy company to express his thanks.

“I’m glad it all turned out amazing—the best way it could have,” said Matt. Added Steve, “I’m right there with you Matt. I’m glad we were there."

Protection in Any Situation

Blackline’s innovative technology is designed to boost worker safety across more than a dozen industries worldwide. Our suite of cloud-connected wearable safety devices, area gas monitors, and monitoring software—coupled with 24/live monitoring—protects over 165,000 industrial workers globally. Our solution can be customized to mitigate any risk that front line workers may face, whether working in a remote area or a suburban community. 

As Steve and Matt discovered first-hand, real-time connectivity links workers to immediate emergency support, helping them deal with any situation that arises on the job, even unexpected ones like a health emergency in the community. The peace of mind—and in this case the life of a child—are irreplaceable.

In 2021, an estimated 175,500 preventable injury-related deaths occurred in homes and communities, or about 78% of all preventable injury-related deaths that year. – National Safety Council Injury Facts

A version of this story was also published in American Gas Magazine.

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