Who would they contact in an emergency?

Suppose you were out and your blood sugar got low? Perhaps so low that you lost consciousness and medical personnel wanted to contact someone on your behalf.

Who would they contact? And how would they figure it out?

Maybe you have an emergency bracelet or necklace that contains some details. That's definitely a great idea.

These days, you probably have a mobile phone. And that's where ICE comes in. ICE is an acronym for In Case of Emergency. And you can use it to store the phone number of someone to be contacted if an emergency occurs.

And according to the New York Times:

a report presented at a recent gathering of the American Conference of Emergency Physicians said doctors should encourage their patients to start using it.
...
Traditionally, hospital workers have searched for a wallet and then tried to find relatives through the identification inside — a slow and not always successful method.

But with cellphones so common, Dr. McKenna [Albany Medical Center] said, hospitals now often search through cellphone address books for clues about whom to contact. While efforts to teach people to add an emergency contact listing have begun, doctors can do more to popularize the idea, he said.

Have you a mobile phone? If you were unconscious would someone looking at the phone know who to call?

Please take out your phone now and add an ICE contact.

Labels: technology

posted by Bernard @ 2:28 AM