'Alexa, help me': A nursing home patient begged her Amazon Echo for help dozens of times before dying of COVID-19

• A Michigan nursing home patient reportedly asked her Amazon Echo smart speaker for help dozens of times before she died from COVID-19.
• LouAnn Dagen, 66, was one of 36 people who tested positive for coronavirus as part of an outbreak at a Cedar Springs nursing home.
• She reportedly asked her Alexa device "How do I get to the police?" In response, the device gave directions to the nearest police station. Amazon Echo devices cannot contact 911 on their own.
• After her death, Dagen's sister found more than 40 recordings on Dagen's smart speaker of her asking for help. Dagen's sister decided to publicize the recordings to show others the brutality of the virus.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

As LouAnn Dagen battled COVID-19, the 66-year-old asked her Amazon Echo Show for help dozens of times before she ultimately died of the disease, caused by the coronavirus.

Dagen was among 36 people who tested positive for coronavirus at Metron nursing home in Cedar Springs, Mich., Nexstar Media Wire first reported.

Dagen's sister, Penny Dagen, said that after her sister's death, she found more than 40 recordings on her Amazon Echo that showed Dagen asking for help in her final days.

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"Alexa, help me," LouAnn Dagen said to her device. "I am in pain. I have to find a way to relieve it."

At one point, Dagen asked Alexa, "How do I get to the police?" In response, the device gave her directions to the nearest police station.

Penny Dagen shared the Alexa recordings with a local news station, saying she wanted people to understand the brutality of the coronavirus.

In recorded statements on her Amazon Echo, as well as in phone conversations with her family, LouAnn Dagen repeatedly said she was in pain even as she was being administered pain relievers by the nursing home, Penny said.

After four days of those symptoms, Dagen's oxygen level and blood pressure reportedly dropped, and the nursing home sent her to the emergency room. She died shortly after.

"The hospital called me right away and said that they put her on a respirator," Penny told the news station. "They asked me about giving her CPR if her heart stopped, and I said, 'No, she didn't want that.' And then her heart stopped and that was it. A half-hour after they called."

An Amazon spokesperson did not immediately respond to Business Insider's request for comment. There's no indication that Dagen's Echo device was malfunctioning or broken.

Alexa devices cannot call 911 on their own without being specially configured with an external device or third party software. Part of the reason is that smart speakers don't reliably transmit location data and a callback number in the way phones do, and that consumers would have to pay more per month for a 911 surcharge, according to The Wall Street Journal.

However, it's possible to configure the device to call non-emergency numbers by merely speaking the phone number or the name of the contact.