My husband was an insulin-dependent diabetic. Although his parents had purchased an emblem for him when he was young, he was reluctant to wear it. Some people are fiercely independent, and do not want people to make a fuss of them because of their medical condition! Although I managed to persuade him to wear it most of the time, there were many days that he forgot to put it on.
He was traveling alone in the car one day, and obviously had a diabetic reaction. The car came to rest (fortuitously) outside our local hospital, and he was soon found and admitted. Due to the fact that he was not wearing his emblem at the time, it was many hours before I was contacted to say that he was in hospital on a drip. It was a full 24 hours before he was ‘back to normal’.
Another time, he was out on the road with work colleagues when he started feeling funny. As his workmates had no idea what to do they stopped at a police station. The police officer who attended to him immediately saw his MedicAlert emblem, gave him a sugary drink, and a little while later they were on their way again. Hats off to the police officer who had remembered his First Aid training.
Needless to say, he never forgot to wear it again, as he realized the importance of this “simple device”.
Ruth