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Woman`s Life Saved by Web Camera

Karin Jordal, 69, had suffered an attack of low blood sugar, and collapsed. She was completely alone except for a Web camera and the Internet. Thanks to these two technological tools, this California mother`s lkife was saved by her sons in Norway and the Philippines. When they saw her lying on the couch, unmovine, they quickly called for help. Her son from the Philippines called for an ambulance in Los Angeles.

Jordal, a diabetic who has lived on and off between Spain and the United States for fifteen years, collapsed Thursday in her living room in Pinon Hills, California, and was motionless on a couch until her son Tore called for help. `He tried to call her, and got no answer,` Tore`s brother, Ole Jordal, said by telephone from the western Norway city of Bergen. `He had also tried to call the police and ambulances (in California) but couldn`t get through.`

Ole Jordal told reporters that low blood sugar caused his mother`s collapse, and that she will be allowed to go home after a few days in the hospital. His family had set up Web cameras in their homes because of the high cost of staying in touch by telephone. `Now I see the Internet as a way to save lives. It`s also a wonderful tool for people who live alone in some remote area, and might need help,` says her son, Ole. The mother was unconscious for about two hours before her sons checked in. They use the cameras only a few times a week. `I thank that camera and my sons for my life,` Karin Jordal told the Norwegian newspaper Bergens Tidende by telephone from her hospital bed.