Nobody Home

Last night, we were sent to a "collapsed behind locked doors". It's usually an elderly person who's fallen and can't get themselves up again, someone who has passed away, or they've caught their alarm pendant while they've been out and so there's nobody home. The MDT told us that the police were on their way to gain access for us.

We arrived to find the police there, and unable to gain any response from banging on the door - usually, if it's a person who's fallen, they'll call out so we know they're conscious. When this happens, we usually try to find a relative who has a key and wait for them to come and let us in. If we don't get an answer, then the size 9 key is used. If that doesn't work, the police get their "enforcer" out. This is a big heavy metal ram that is used to batter the door open and usually causes lots of mess and broken doors and frames.

The size 9 key didn't work, so one of the officers radioed up for the enforcer to be brought.
"Dave'll be happy," he told me. "This'll be the first time he's had chance to use the enforcer since he did his course last week." While we waited for the enforcer, a few more kicks were aimed at the door, which still refused to give way.

Then a neighbour appeared. "What's going on?"
"The careline alarm has been activated - we think someone's collapsed inside," explained the copper as he got ready to aim his boot at the door again.
"Stop - I've got a key for the back door. And there's nobody there - he's gone on holiday to Portugal," said the neighbour.

She let us in, and sure enough, the flat was empty. We located the careline machine, activated it and spoke to the careline call-centre. We decided there must have been a fault which caused the alarm to activate.

The enforcer was cancelled, and Dave sounded rather disappointed he wouldn't be putting his newly acquired skill of breaking a door down into practice.

At least the owner won't be coming home to find his door smashed....