Enumclaw Senior Warns of Medical Alert Service Limitations

A terrible thing happened to Dorothy Clark in January and she doesn't want anyone else to experience it, so she took her message to the Enumclaw City Council during its meeting Monday to share this message: if you or a loved one use LifeLine medical alert equipment and services to ensure safety in the event of a medical emergency, make sure you never disconnect your phone line.

That's exactly what Clark said she had done on January 3 because she'd gotten tired of receiving unwanted calls from solicitors.

She then decided to step into her bathtub for a bath but passed out and fell. Though she came to, she then hit the side of her head against the tub and was knocked out again. When she awoke the second time, she said she was lying on the floor with cold water running all around her.

She hit her LifeLine button but nothing happened; the phone was never plugged back in.

For the next 10 and a half hours, all Clark could do was lay there and yell for help. "I couldn't move my legs or turn over or anything," she said. "There I lay all day long."

Clark credits a neighbor and the volunteers of Enumclaw's new Neighbors Feeding Neighbors program for finally hearing her cry for help and summoning aid. Her neighbor dialed 911, she said, while the volunteers called the Enumclaw Senior Center. The center's manager Jobyna Nickum - "the greatest person for taking care of everything you ever saw" - responded to Clark's home and helped warm her up before the ambulance arrived.

The incident was documented in a letter Enumclaw Fire Capt. Randy Fehr wrote to The Courier-Herald in January and further stressed the important role of the Neighbors Feeding Neighbors volunteers in not only delivering meals to the seniors but also ensuring they are OK.

Though she's grateful, Clark never strayed from her primary message to the public:

“If the phone is off the hook, it [LifeLine] is not going to work. You have to remember that. If you love somebody you need to tell them to be sure to have the phone on the hook."

Nickum notes for others in the community who have a senior in mind who could benefit from the Neighbors Feeding Neighbors program, please call 360-825-4741 for information.