‘Vial of Life’ program getting started in county
An area fire department township wants to help emergency personnel save more lives in Leavenworth County.
So the Stranger Township Fire Department Auxiliary is initiating the Vial of Life program in the county. Basically, anyone participating in the program fills out pertinent medical information, places it in a vial and stores that vial in their refrigerator. That way, medical details are accessible to emergency medical workers who are called to homes.
Members of the 2-year-old auxiliary will attend Tonganoxie Days on Saturday, distributing information about the Vial of Life program. During the Leavenworth County Fair in August, the auxiliary will distribute the actual vials. The group also will sell bottled water at the fair, helping to cover costs associated with the vial program and other programs the group has under way.
“Our objective is to make everybody a little safer,” said Gail Collins, a member of the auxiliary. “We’re going to cover as many people at the fair as are interested in it. I think we can distribute about 600 bottles to start with. That’s how many I have sitting in my game room right now. If it’s received in a positive way, we have even discussed trying to get the city of Tonganoxie auxiliary involved. We kind of want to feel it out on our own, and this is our first community project.”
Stranger Township covers the rural area northeast of Tonganoxie.
The sheets of paper inside the vials include this information: the names and birth dates of members of the household; the names of medicines those people take on a routine basis; and the names of each person’s physician, hospital preference, insurance company and emergency contact.
“No one is ever going to know this information that you put in this bottle that goes in that refrigerator,” Collins said. “Until there is a 911 emergency, no one should ever know what’s in that vial except you. It’s not something that anyone would ever know until then.”
Once a vial is placed in the refrigerator, a sticker is attached to the side of the refrigerator door.
“The logic behind that is everybody has a refrigerator and all kitchens are centrally located,” Collins said.