How Man Down Alarm Devices Help Lone Workers Stay Safe
In high risk environments such as building sites, factories, warehouses, and more, Man Down alarms can be vital for lone workers to stay safe. In addition to ensuring they can call for help if they have an accident, this safety feature also ensures that the alarm is raised quickly if they are unconscious or otherwise incapacitated.
Man down sensors are built into many lone working devices, including the Tait TP9300 and TP9400 portable radios. This feature takes advantage of the accelerometer in the device to detect motion or a lack thereof. When it detects that a worker is motionless or in a prone position, it sends an alert to the monitoring team, which can then trigger a response and get help to the affected employee.
In most cases, if the sensor doesn’t detect movement after a certain amount of time (usually 3 minutes or 1 hour), it will emit a local pre alarm noise to notify the user that they are likely going to raise a Man Down alarm soon. The user can then manually press the red button on their device to stop this from happening. This is useful if the worker needs to check in with their supervisor and/or make sure everything is okay (to avoid false alarms).
safety alarm The system is then programmed to automatically raise a Man Down alarm after the specified period of time if no movement is detected. The worker can then press the button again to cancel this alarm if they’re not actually in danger or need assistance.
Depending on the individual needs of the company and lone worker, some systems will allow the operator to select their own sensitivity settings for this feature in order to reduce the number of false alarms that might occur. lone worker safety app Some will also have an option to disable the Man Down feature completely if it’s not needed, making it more suitable for casual use by lone workers who don’t need it all the time.
In some instances, the alarm is sent directly to a trusted person via digital alert. In others, the alert is sent to an Alarm Receiving Centre (ARC), which is a purpose-built organisation that receives and processes these type of emergency alarms. The ARC will then attempt to contact the employee and/or their designated escalation contacts, in addition to alerting the relevant emergency services.
One of the key advantages of using a Man Down alarm is that it can be triggered much quicker than traditional lone working alarms, which may only be activated by pressing the red button on the device. This means that a team can be notified in as little as 3 minutes, which is a significant improvement on the current average of 12 to 15 minutes.
The Man Down alarm feature is available on both the Identicom range of lone worker devices, as well as the CareLink social alarm base unit. This is an affordable and reliable way to boost the health and safety of vulnerable employees, and to make sure that help will be there if they need it.
