A family’s ordeal leads to a method for protecting others.

Learning that your child has been in an accident is traumatic. Not knowing about it for several hours is worse. Deb and Randall Maupin, parishioners of Our Lady of Fatima in Alcoa, lived through such a trial in August 2002, when their daughter was involved in an serious car accident.

As painful as the experience was, it inspired Mrs. Maupin to develop a product that will help protect other families from similar suffering.

Emily Maupin, a recent graduate of Knoxville Catholic High School, was pulling onto Cedar Bluff Road when a man in a large truck ran a red light and struck her car on the driver’s side. Several people called 911. The police called her home and left her parents a voice-mail message to call the emergency room. They also drove by her house, but no one was home. Because Emily was in a coma, she couldn’t give authorities the information they needed to contact her mother and father at work.

Through a series of events that Emily sees as divine intervention, Mrs. Maupin, a former emergency room nurse, and her husband were located two hours later. One of the nurses Mrs. Maupin had worked with in another hospital years ago recognized Emily and placed a call to that hospital. She spoke to a nurse who had just seen Mr. Maupin the evening before and in the course of the conversation learned where he was working. After he was notified, he reached his wife on her cell phone.

Emily was in a coma for three days with brain injuries, broken bones in her arm, and a fractured pelvis. She was hospitalized for nearly a month. During that time her mother began to develop the idea of a product that would help officers locate important contacts in the event of an emergency.

The result was ELM, Emergency Links Matter, a notification system that helps authorities notify family members in emergencies. “You don’t have to be unconscious [to need this],” said Mrs. Maupin. “In a bad accident you can be rattled enough to forget important numbers.”

The ELM kit includes reflective stickers for the front and back of a vehicle, to be affixed in a uniform location, which makes it easy for police officers to identify the vehicle as one equipped with ELM. The stickers alert officers to check the driver’s side visor for a bright-red nylon pocket containing a card that lists important contact information. A wallet card for the driver confirms the information in the visor. The kit costs $20.

Dr. Aurelia Montgomery, principal of Knoxville Catholic, agreed to allow the high school to pilot the initial program for ELM. The Maupin family attended the first KCHS parent-teacher group meeting of the new school year to explain and promote the product.

Emily, a student at Pellissippi, has now recovered from her injuries but is still “leaning back and taking it easy,” said her mother.

Meanwhile, Mrs. Maupin continues her quest to help authorities conatacct the families of accident victims more quickly. In recent meetings with local authorities, her five-minute video explaining the concept has been well-received.

“The officers like what it can do,” she said. “It can significantly decrease the time required for them in notifying family members.”