Patent ID: 7126472

Claim:
A method of providing emergency response to a user carrying a user device ( 32 ), said method comprising the steps of: establishing a monitoring database ( 34 ) including identifications for a plurality of user devices ( 32 ) and user information associated with each of the user devices ( 32 ) including a list of contacts to be contacted in an emergency and methods of notifying the contacts for each user of each user device ( 32 ); establishing an internet protocol (IP) address for the monitoring database ( 34 ); establishing an IP address for each user device ( 32 ); selecting one of the user devices ( 32 ) in the database; detecting the presence of either one of a cellular network and a cradle ( 48 ) connected to the Internet ( 36 ) by the user device ( 32 ); establishing communication over the Internet ( 36 ) between the monitoring database ( 34 ) and the selected user device ( 32 ); receiving an incident inquiry with the monitoring database ( 34 ) from the selected user device ( 32 ); automatically notifying a contact of the incident via a first notification method through the monitoring database ( 34 ) in response to receiving the incident inquiry: receiving a response electronically with the monitoring database ( 34 ) from the contact as one of accepted, not accepted, or unresponsive; and automatically notifying the contact via a second notification method different than the first notification method through the monitoring database ( 34 ) as a result of the response by the first notification method being one of not accepted or unresponsive.