Free Vial of Life may help save lives

WASILLA -- Tiny free vials are helping emergency medical personnel save lives in the Mat-Su. The vials are distributed for free from the Wasilla Wal-Mart Pharmacy, as part of the Vial of Life program, to anyone interested in the program. The vials contains information about a person's medical history.

"If you have a family member or loved one with a large number of medications, the ambulance crews could just read the vial," said EMT Amanda Lopes, of Wasilla. According to Lopes, the vials are especially helpful to emergency medical crews when a person is in a situation where they are either unconscious or unable to think clearly in an emergency situation. The Vial of Life Web site at www.vialoflife.com states one of the benefits of the program is that the Vial of Life speaks for people when they can't. People don't have to remember all their medical conditions and medications, the vials do it for them.

Each vial contains two slips of paper on which participants record their medical conditions, medications they take, allergies and any other helpful information, including emergency contacts.

The program is completely voluntary and contains only the pertinent information that a participant wants to record. After filling out the slips of paper, they are placed in the vial, which is then stored on the top left shelf of the refrigerator door.

The vial packages also include a vial for the participant's automobile along with a wallet-size card, which is a smaller version of the larger sheets and a window sticker that lets emergency crews know to look for the vial when they enter a residence.

According to Lopes, the program has operated in Alaska for about three years and the Wasilla Wal-Mart Pharmacy department estimated that roughly 1,000 Vials are currently distributed throughout the state so far.

Contact Joel Davidson at joel.davidson@frontiersman.com.