Lone Worker Support – RedAlert To The Rescue

Our Alarm Receiving Centre, based at Riverside, is managed by our team of approximately 30 people providing life-saving support to over 70,000 lone workers throughout the UK. Each member of the team is provided with our RedAlert Professional mobile App to help protect them both during and outside of their working hours.

In June 2024, our ARC Service Co-ordinator, Lewis Lawson, was involved in a terrifying incident on Mossborough Road, St Helens, which left him with life threatening injuries. Lewis kindly offered to tell us his story and how RedAlert played such a vital role in his rescue.

“While returning from a visit to another depot on my motorbike, I hit debris at around 40mph, causing me to lose control of the bike. As the bike swerved into a kerb, I was thrown approximately 20ft forward before landing heavily across the road. My body skated along the tarmac, burning holes in my trousers, before striking the curb again and rolling into a ditch. Everything went black and I could hear my own groaning.

After regaining consciousness, I realised the severity of my injuries and knew I urgently needed help. I managed to reach my phone and activate a Red Alert through my App. Although a passerby had kindly stopped to help me, I was in no condition to communicate properly having had the wind knocked out of me and still experiencing the initial shock of the accident.

The operator from the Alarm Receiving Centre immediately responded to the alert and was able to get the attention of the bystander and together they were able to contact an ambulance for me and alert my Manager to the situation.

I shudder to imagine the outcome if the accident had occurred later in the day when the road is deserted; I might not have been discovered for hours. The significance of lone worker protection only truly sinks in when your life hangs in the balance.”

We’re pleased to say that Lewis has since made a full recovery and grateful that he offered to share his story with our audience. Lone worker support is often linked to providing protection against violent or threatening incidents, and whilst this is certainly true, cases like Lewis’s are also common and demonstrate how lone working devices play a vital role in all types of emergencies.