How an alert flows#

From the moment something goes wrong to the moment it’s closed off. The design goal is one number: how long until the first neighbour is at the door.

The six steps: raise it, it arrives, answer, go, stand down, close it off.

1. Raise it#

Whoever notices presses the button — the person in trouble, a neighbour, a passer-by, a family member on the phone from Madrid. It asks one question, what kind, and offers four answers: fire, medical, crime, emergency. A registered device skips even that: one press, alert sent.

If it needs the authorities, call 062 or 112 first, then press. If you’re alone with someone on the floor, press first and call while you wait; the press takes a second. Whoever called says so in the group, so five people don’t ring the same operator.

Sharing a location is one more tap, and optional. In a village of two hundred the name usually tells everyone the house. It matters out in the fields.

2. It arrives#

Every member’s phone, at once, with the category, the name, the time and the emergency numbers. No dispatcher, no duty officer, no queue — on purpose.

3. Answer#

Say in the group whether you’re going. One word does it.

This is the step people skip, and it’s the one that makes the difference. It tells the person in trouble that help is coming, and it stops the two failure modes of a leaderless network: everybody assuming somebody else went, and eleven people arriving in the same kitchen.

If nobody has answered within a couple of minutes, ring the nearest member directly. Their phone is on silent.

4. Go#

A man stands in an empty village street at dusk with a torch, a lit porch and an open door behind him. — Standing at the road to wave the ambulance in is not a small contribution: on an unlit village lane, finding the right house costs minutes. Illustration, generated. Not a real person or place.

The first neighbour there does the ordinary useful things: opens the door, puts the light on, waits at the road to wave the ambulance in, moves the car, keeps the person warm and talking.

And nothing else. Observe, report, help. Never intervene, pursue or detain — the Protocol, and the reason this is legal in Spain.

Say what’s actually happening in the group as you find out, so the ones still on their way know what they’re walking into. Describe behaviour and vehicles, never people’s origins, and don’t post photographs of anyone.

5. Stand down#

The alert has a False alarm button. Press it. The alert is struck through and everyone knows to stand down.

Nobody is questioned about it, ever. A network where pressing the button is embarrassing is a network people don’t press — why false alarms are cheap.

6. Close it off#

The Coordinator posts one line: what it was, who went, what happened. Not a report — a full stop, so the group isn’t left wondering at midnight.

Once a year, look at the log: how many alerts, of what kind, how fast, how many false. Three numbers is the entire evaluation.

When it doesn’t work#

A phone on silent. By far the most common failure. Setup at sign-up, tested at drills.
No internet. The fallback is the old phone tree, written down and stuck on the fridge. Have one.
The person can’t reach a phone at all. That’s what registered devices are for — a pendant round the neck, a unit on the wall, no screen to operate. Some raise the alarm with nobody pressing anything: fall detection does it by itself.