FAILED 'PANIC BUTTON'?

Chris Hawes reports

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DALLAS - One North Texas family said much-needed help didn't come for their father because of a "panic button" failed to work.

Pamela, Patti and Rob Stern said they all knew one day they would lose their parents.

"There's a hole in my heart that can never be filled," Pamela Stern said.

What they said they weren't prepared for was the way it happened.

"It could have been prevented," Rob Stern said. "It wasn't their time"

Bill and Joan Stern worked around the clock to make their family coupon book business successful. It paid off when they built their dream home in North Dallas.

As the couple aged, the family said they wouldn't hear of moving.

In addition to buying an ADT security system, the couple bought a home health monitoring system known as the ADT Companion Service Personal Emergency Response System.

A push of a button on a wrist bracelet would call ADT, who then alerts paramedics.

"They had absolute confidence in the product," Rob Stern said. "The paramedics were literally five blocks away."

But on May 14, 2007, the Sterns said the system malfunctioned. Joan Stern said an ADT worker came out that same day and told her the health monitoring system needed a new part. The system, they said, remained out of order the next day, and the next.

Clint Gilbert/attorney (was hired by Joan Stern, then the children after she died)

"The Sterns were without the medical alert system and service," said Clint Gilbert, an attorney hired by Joan Stern before she passed away.

On May 17, 2007, three days after ADT first learned of the problem, the company ran out of time. Joan Stern found her husband dead in their home. The health alert bracelet, she told her children, was still around his wrist.

"That was what had my mother so upset," her son said. "Just the image of him lying on the floor, pressing this button on the bracelet over and over again and dying."

The next day anguish turned into anger as an ADT worker arrived at the home.

"My mom said, 'You're a day too late; my husband passed last night [and] we couldn't get a hold of you guys," Rob Stern said.

The family said that employee, Steve Roberts, told them the delay hadn't been necessary.

"He had a box in his hand and he said, 'Well, I'll just replace everything out. There's no reason they didn't just do this in the first place,'" Rob Stern said.

News 8 contacted Roberts, who said ADT knew the life-saving system wasn't working and that the first ADT worker "for some unknown reason …left the unit unplugged."

Roberts said he personally reported the unplugged unit to ADT but had no idea what had happened until ADT called him asking to make an emergency service call. It wasn't until Roberts arrived at the house that he learned Bill Stern had died

"[It was] one of the worst experiences of my life," Roberts said. "It happened and it shouldn't have."

Three months later, Joan Stern died as well.

ADT declined to comment citing the ongoing litigation. In court filings, the company said it doesn't have enough information about the claims and denied the allegations.

E-mail chawes@wfaa.com