Parents Beware: Chances Are Your College Student Will Visit The ER This Year
Pacific Palisades, California (PRWEB) October 11, 2017 -- With more than 20 million college students attending this year’s fall semester,** parents and guardians are left with the worry of the potential dangers to their children while at school.
Whether college students commute or live away from home, parents are constantly anxious about their sons and daughters’ safety, and with due cause. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than 20 percent of college-aged individuals – approximately 4 million young adults – end up in the emergency room each year, with approximately 700,000 becoming seriously injured from alcohol-related accidents.***
Newly launched Umergency™ is an app designed to provide college students and their families with the necessary tools to navigate through any emergency, health or safety situation. Free for students and available for download on both Android and iOS devices, Umergency offers a variety of accessible on- and off-campus resources, including an Urgent Alert beacon that notifies trusted contacts when immediate help is needed, along with the student’s GPS location.
“My daughter Alex called in the middle of the night, and all I heard her say was, ‘Mom, it’s really bad.’ My heart sank,” said Gail Schenbaum, co-founder of Umergency, whose real-life experience was the impetus for creating the app. “The EMT hung up the phone after saying, ‘We’re pulling into the ER with a partial amputation. We’ll call you back.’ I felt so helpless, and that’s why we’ve created a resource that will equip both students and parents with the communication tools and medical resources they need in the case of any emergency.”
Umergency features a digital medical consent form, granting families the ability to speak with medical professionals, as well as an insurance card upload function. Aggregated emergency resource contacts, customized to each college or university, can be accessed by both students and families, which includes local police, fire, ER, and urgent care personnel, as well as on-campus health center, psychological and other after-hours services hotlines.
Thousands of parents and students nationwide are using Umergency, which offers critical resources pre-populated for 1,200 colleges and universities in its database, ready at the touch of a button. Umergency also features built-in access to three of the most used national crisis hotlines, including suicide, sexual assault and poison control.
“My daughter is a college student who was by herself in the ER last year and the doctors wouldn’t talk to me,” said Lillah McCarthy, parent of a University of Michigan student who is now using the app with her daughter. “If we had Umergency at the time, the hospital staff would have seen her signed consent form and shared with me what was happening. Thankfully we have it now, and I can sleep better at night knowing that I am only a click away from helping my daughter when she needs it.”
Umergency’s all-in-one app is free for current college students in the U.S. Parents, family members and other non-student users can subscribe for only $7.99/year or $19.99 for lifetime access. Students and parents are immediately granted secure access in just four easy steps: 1) downloading the app, 2) creating an account, 3) selecting the college or university, and 4) pairing students’ and parents’ accounts together.
** The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES).
*** National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism.
About Umergency™
Umergency is an emergency, health and safety resource designed for college students and their families. The local and on-campus information comes pre-populated and is specific to each student’s campus, while the user-entered data is unique to each student and allows them to decide what to share and with whom. Additional features include the ability to upload and share a secure copy of the student’s health insurance card, and a digital medical consent form which can allow the student’s trusted friends and family to receive confidential information. Learn more about the app by visiting http://www.umergencyapp.com or visit Facebook http://www.facebook.com/Umergency, Twitter @Umergency and Instagram @Umergency.
George Medici, PondelWilkinson, (310) 279-5980, [email protected]
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