Personal Alarms
With all the recent talk of rapes and assaults on women why on earth all women and girls dont carry a "personal alarm" defies belief. There is no way I would be walking alone at night "anywhere" but if I was in the situation where I had to do so I would have one of these hanging around my neck with my finger ready and waiting to activate it.
In the town where I live there was an incident where a young lady had her car break down on a highway. A man stopped to supposedly help but attempted to rape her instead.
Fortunately she had a "personal alarm" hanging off her keychain which was in the ignition and she managed to reach across and activate. He got such a shock when the piercing screech went off he jumped out of her car into his own and sped off.
The noise of one of these things is very ear piercing and there is no way I would want to be around one when it is going off and it is enough to scare them and perhaps bring others to your aid.
The cost is just under $10 and they are available at many outlets.
A time and place for everything, I was once involved in a process of assessing different security strategies for a government faciility. One of the gems gleaned from private security firms involved was that under certain circumstances startling an offender can cause them to become extremely violant. Apparentley the main object of a loud and high pitched alarm is to startle the offender into what is called the fight or fright mode. He/she will either be shocked into fleeing or will automatically turn on fight mode and become violent. In a crowded street or office an audio alarm may be ideal, but in a more secluded environment it could cause more problems than it solves.
As usual it is best to match the solution to the circumstance, it is never a one solution fixes everything situation.
For medical reasons this solution would have to be the best I can think of, it took us years to convince my Mother in Law to get one, but the whole family rests a little easier now that we know she is covered.