ICE number & smart phones.

A friend of mine posted something about an In Case of Emergency (ICE) number on your mobile phone on facebook this morning & I know it’s been talked about on here quite a lot in the past & is a good idea.

However a couple of things I was wondering –

1 – would the emergency services ever sift through someone’s belongings to find a phone?

2 – in these days of smart phones if you’ve got a key code/pattern/retina scan to turn your phone on how is the emergency service man (or woman) going to even find the number to call?

I went to a talk by a paramedic fairly recently. Presentation on cycling-specific first aid. Pretty good really and a worthy back up to the industry-standard First Aid at Work thing.

Bottom line is that paramedics don’t care about that, they’ll work on saving the persons life first, then worry about who they are later. And even that is more a job for the police.

Most smartphones, you can set the home screen to have ID or an emergency number, thus negating the need to get through the ever smarter security codes. ICE was fine back in the days when to lock a phone you pressed * and # together, much less useful now.

You can get ICE lock screen apps for some phones.

Funny this really because it was the 7/7 bombings that brought the whole idea of ICE to the fore and then its been somewhat forgotten about in this country.

My dad was living in Australia at the time and emergency responders were given specific to search for ICE numbers.

Don’t know if they do here or not.

Personally, due to a medical condition I wear a RoadID when I’m riding. A small dog tag type thing with basic contact details and med condition details on it.

Cheers

Danny B

As Crazylegs says the only Emergency service who will use ICE is the police. Paramedics may check for ID but it’s usually the least of our concerns if the person can’t tell us who they are.

1 – would the emergency services ever sift through someone’s belongings to find a phone?

No.
It’s not a priority in an emergency.

We see the occasional Unknown male on ITU, but we’ve always managed to ID them after 12 hours or so. If we do look through someone’s phone we are bright enough to be able to ring the numbers labelled as Mum, or Mum and Dad or any other of the numbers.

Get a tattoo with the ice number in it.

Surely this is the answer

I’m pretty sure they’d check for a wallet or drivers licence first. If they checked my phone, although I don’t habitually lock it with a code, they’d have to find my contacts app, which is called Threads; the standard Contacts app has been relegated to a folder on the last apps page.
Not impossible to find, I’ll admit, though. 😀
I suppose I really ought to lock it, but having to tap in a code every time I use the phone just niggles.
I have actually toyed with the idea of having a QR Code tattoo done… 🙂

Mrs FD says they don’t bother with it