A medical emergency can leave little time to find a phone, explain the location, and identify who should respond. It can also leave the person experiencing the emergency unable to communicate at all.
Axon President Josh Isner and CENTEGIX CEO Brent Cobb bring that reality into focus in Episode 7 of The Safety Signal. In conversation with CENTEGIX CMO Robb Monkman, Cobb recalls a middle-school teacher who suffered what he describes as a “widow maker” heart attack in her classroom. Students sought help from the teacher next door, who used a wearable alert to initiate the response.
A wearable panic button gives a staff member an immediately accessible way to request help without reaching a phone, radio, or wall-mounted device. When connected to a comprehensive school alert system, the button can identify the alert location, notify a designated team, and help responders find nearby medical equipment.
What Happens When a Medical Emergency Begins Without Warning?
Cobb says the teacher collapsed and went into cardiac arrest. After the neighboring teacher activated the alert, an assistant principal and school nurse reached the classroom within approximately a minute and a half. They brought an AED, resuscitated the teacher, and she later made a full recovery.
“She’s a mother of four of her own children,” Cobb says. “We’ve been told hundreds of stories like that one where, again, the technology and the people come together to have a lasting impact in that community.”
The account illustrates why medical response planning must account for incidents involving students, employees, and visitors. The American Heart Association’s policy statement on cardiac emergency response planning for schools recommends a written plan, a trained response team, rapid activation, accessible AEDs, coordination with EMS, drills, and regular review.
The technology does not perform CPR, use the AED, or make clinical decisions. Its role is to help the right people learn about the emergency and find it sooner.
How Did a Wearable Panic Button Help Initiate the Response?
The person who activated the alert was not the teacher experiencing the heart attack. Students recognized that something was wrong and called for a neighboring teacher, who used the wearable to request help. That detail matters because emergencies are often recognized first by whoever happens to be nearby.
The CENTEGIX CrisisAlert wearable panic button is designed to remain on the staff member and initiate an alert with the press of a button. Designated responders receive the request with the user’s location. In a medical emergency, that can allow the person providing immediate aid to remain with the patient instead of leaving to find a phone or another employee.
“The power of people and technology together can make a real difference,” Cobb says.
That distinction should remain central to the story. The wearable initiates the request and communicates location; trained people assess the patient, retrieve equipment, call 911, and provide care.
Why Does Immediate Access to an Alert Matter?
Sudden cardiac arrest can cause a person to become unresponsive and stop breathing normally. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advises calling 911, beginning CPR, and using an AED when one is available.
Those steps depend on someone recognizing the emergency and activating the response. A wearable stays with the employee as they move through classrooms, hallways, cafeterias, parking lots, playgrounds, and athletic areas. That accessibility can remove the preliminary search for a communication device.
The same design principle applies to emergencies beyond cardiac events. Cobb says the CENTEGIX platform has been used more than 70,000 times for medical emergencies over the preceding few years, including heart attacks, sudden cardiac arrest, fentanyl overdoses, and seizures.
Adoption is an operational safety issue. A device cannot shorten an alerting process if staff do not carry it, understand it, or trust it to work.
How Does Precise Location Support Rapid Incident Response?
“Time is the most important element of a response, and it is the thing we cannot get back,” Cobb says.
Isner explains why location changes the response in both medical and security events. Responders need to find victims to provide help, and in a violent incident they may also need to locate the perpetrator. Accurate location narrows the area responders must search and helps them select an appropriate approach.
The CENTEGIX Safety Platform connects wearable alerting with room- and floor-level locating, notifications, and response tools. Its private, managed networks are designed to provide coverage across an entire campus rather than depending on a staff member’s phone to have service and initiate the alert.
Coverage should be validated wherever people work and gather. The CDC’s school preparedness guidance stresses planning for children’s needs before, during, and after emergencies. For a school alert system, that means considering classrooms along with athletic areas, outdoor spaces, transportation facilities, and other locations where an emergency may occur.
Why Should a School Alert System Identify Nearby AEDs?
Reaching the patient is only one part of a cardiac response. Someone must also retrieve the AED and bring it to the incident.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration explains that AEDs analyze heart rhythm and can deliver a shock when appropriate. The agency also emphasizes the importance of maintaining AEDs so they work when needed.
The American Heart Association recommends placing enough AEDs so one can be retrieved and delivered anywhere on a school campus within three minutes. Its Chain of Survival begins with recognizing cardiac arrest and activating the emergency response system, followed by early CPR and rapid defibrillation.
CENTEGIX Safety Blueprint can show AEDs and other safety assets on a digital map. In the episode, Cobb says the responding assistant principal and nurse could see the AED geospatially in the software. Mapping the equipment helps a response team answer two location questions at once: where is the person who needs help, and where is the nearest appropriate resource?
Are Wearable Panic Buttons Only for Security Threats?
No. Active-assailant scenarios influence many school safety decisions, but medical events, behavioral incidents, fights, elopements, and other everyday situations happen more frequently.
Cobb says medical incidents can “happen anywhere” because “they’re just a part of life.” His example shifts the wearable panic button discussion away from a single worst-case scenario and toward daily readiness.
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s workplace first-aid guidance recommends assessing workplace hazards, response time, communications, supplies, and the availability of trained first-aid providers. Schools have their own policies and legal requirements, but the underlying operational questions are similar: how will someone get help, who will respond, and what resources will they need?
Why Are People the Most Important Part of the Response?
Isner and Cobb both resist the idea that one technology produces a safety outcome on its own.
Isner says that achieving safety “really results from multiple partners and companies working well together.” His point applies to people as well as platforms. A wearable can make the initial request easier. Location technology can direct the response. Digital mapping can identify the AED. None of those steps substitutes for students who recognize a problem, an employee who activates the alert, trained staff who provide care, a telecommunicator who coordinates the call, or EMS personnel who continue treatment.
The federal CPR LifeLinks initiative similarly emphasizes collaboration among 911, EMS, and communities to strengthen the early links in the cardiac Chain of Survival.
“Physicians, many of them, have said that those patients wouldn’t be alive today if it weren’t for our technology and the staff working together in those emergencies,” Cobb says.
The lesson from the episode is more precise than the claim that a button saves a life. A well-designed emergency notification system helps people start a practiced response sooner and gives them information they can act on. The outcome still depends on preparation, training, equipment, judgment, and coordinated care.
Hear the full account and the wider conversation about location, 911, and connected response in Episode 7 of The Safety Signal, “Axon President Josh Isner on the Future of 911.”
Frequently Asked Questions About Wearable Panic Buttons
What is a wearable panic button?
A wearable panic button is a portable device that allows a person to request help without going to a fixed station or navigating a phone application. Depending on the system, an activation can notify designated responders and communicate the wearer’s location.
What happens after someone activates a school panic button?
The process depends on the system and the school’s protocols. An integrated system may notify onsite personnel, provide the alert location, display the incident on a digital map, activate broader notifications when appropriate, and share information with external responders.
Does a wearable panic button provide precise location information?
Some wearable panic button systems include locating technology, while others may identify only the device, user, or general site. Schools should verify the required indoor and outdoor coverage and test whether the system provides the level of location accuracy their response procedures require.
How is a wearable panic button different from a panic button app?
A wearable button is intended to remain physically accessible without requiring the user to retrieve and unlock a phone. An app depends on access to a compatible device and may depend on Wi-Fi or cellular service. Exact capabilities vary, so schools should evaluate accessibility, coverage, location accuracy, notifications, integrations, and maintenance.
Why should a wearable panic button be part of an emergency notification system?
The wearable initiates the request for help. The wider emergency notification system transmits the alert, identifies its location, notifies the appropriate people, communicates instructions when necessary, and supports the response that follows.