Our Central Valley
By STEVE NEWVINE
This is a story about a life-saving piece of jewelry that got started just north of Merced County in Turlock.
That was where, in 1953, 13-year-old Linda Collins was injured while playing with her cousins. What happened following the injury could have been fatal: a trip to the ER, a standard dose of tetanus antitoxin, and suddenly an allergic reaction followed by a coma.
Linda nearly died because the doctor treating her was not aware she was allergic to that medication. Her parents, Marion and Chrissie Collins were not with her for the ER visit so the people treating Linda did not know about the allergy. The pair decided right then that no family should face this prospect in the future. Medical information, the Collins’ believed, should be made available to emergency personnel. They started Medic Alert from their Turlock home.
From that point forward, Mrs. Collins attached a small note to her daughter’s bracelet stating what the allergy was in case it should ever happen again.
But the parents knew there had to be a better way for medical professionals to get that kind of information. Within three years, the Collins’ formed a non-profit organization that we now know as MedicAlert.
The first bracelet was custom made by a jeweler who inscribed Linda’s allergies. Upon entering college in 1956, classmates saw the bracelet and asked about having some made for others with similar needs. The MedicAlert Foundation was formed. The bracelets led to other items of jewelry and eventually to the establishment of a 24-hour hotline for medical professionals to access critical information about the conditions of MedicAlert members.
Dr. Marion Collins was proud of the creation of Medic Alert. Of the MedicAlert initiative, he said “I believe I can save more lives with MedicAlert than I ever can with my scalpel.”
The Collins family remained in Turlock all their lives. Linda’s father, Dr. Marion Collins passed in 1977. Mrs. Chrissie Collins remained in Turlock in the years following her husband’s death. She served on the MedicAlert board and was known to ask pointed questions about the non-profit’s operations and the foundation’s huge computer system. She passed in 2001.
Linda graduated from Stanford University with a degree in nursing. She married, had three children, and later divorced. She died from breast cancer in 2004.
The community of Turlock has never forgotten the legacy left by the Collins family. There’s a story in Chrissie Collins obituary about how the community of Turlock came together to get Medic Alert up and running in the late 1950s.
In 1981 the Kiwanis Club of Turlock presented a stone marker that was placed in front of the non-profit’s office on Colorado Avenue. On the marker, these words are inscribed: Medic Alert Foundation International. Founded on March 26, 1956 in Turlock , California by Marion C. Collins, MD to provide a lifetime of emergency medical identification for all people. Presented by the Kiwanis Club of Greater Turlock, March 26, 1981.
Medic Alert moved from Turlock to an office in Salida, Stanislaus County, in 2015. Four years later, it moved back to Turlock occupying an office on Lander Avenue. A year later, COVID forced all employees to work from home. Eventually, the non-profit moved out of that office and is now based in North York, Ontario, Canada.
From that humble start in the mid-1950s to now 70 years later, Medic Alert has over 4 million members in 50 countries. The non-profit estimates that four-thousand lives are saved annually thanks to the bracelet and the phone system that provides information on members to emergency personnel. That original medical ID bracelet that Linda wore is now in the Smithsonian Institution.
Now, 70 years later, their story represents the journey of a teenage girl and her parents who would not let a near tragedy go to waste. The over four million Medic Alert members may very well owe their lives to the thoughtfulness of the Collins family of Turlock way back in the 1950s.
Steve Newvine’s books about life in the Central Valley are available at the Merced County Courthouse Museum gift shop and on line at lulu.com/spotlight/stevenewvine