BARRY LEVINE: Don’t let pride endanger safety

About 7 p.m. on Wednesday, I was talking with my older sister in New Jersey when the wooden chair on which I was sitting in my kitchen collapsed, sending me sprawling to the floor.

Unable to get off the floor, all I kept thinking about was the TV commercial with the elderly woman saying, “I’ve fallen and I can’t get up.” I always thought that never could happen to me – but it did!

Forty-five minutes after my fall, EMS workers Kyle Soto and Sean Allen walked in to my duplex and managed to help me get off the floor – no easy trick considering my girth — and get me settled. My sister had contacted EMS to assist me and be certain I wasn’t seriously injured.

Before leaving, Soto and Allen strongly suggested that I get one of those devices that you wear around your neck in case of a problem.

I have been opposed to getting one because it was another signal that I was getting older and more needy. My pig-headedness nearly cost me. I was lucky because I did not suffer a serious injury.

If you live alone as I do, you shouldn’t depend on luck and get one of those devices.

BARRY LEVINE

Albany