What if you were in a car accident? Or at the mall or work and became incapacitated? How would people know who to call? Barbara Latenser, MD, professor and surgeon at University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics, talks about storing ICE or In Case of Emergency information on your cell phone:
Tell us about the ICE information plan. What is being asked of cell phone carriers?
This plan or In Case of Emergency, that’s the I-C-E, was started by a paramedic. We’re asking to make one or more new entries in their cell phone, put the word “ICE,” and then follow it by the name of the person you want us to call in an emergency situation. For example, it could say ICE-Mom, ICE-Dave, ICE-Dad. Or if there’s more than one contact name, you could use ICE1-Dave, ICE2-Mom. We want the person we call to know your medical history.
Why is it a good idea to have more than one emergency contact?
People don’t always have their cell phones on, so we’re asking everyone to have three emergency contacts so we could reach one of the people on your ICE list if you were incapacitated and unable to talk to us.
You want to make sure your emergency contact knows your medical history, how detailed of a history should that be?
The medical history should be detailed enough that we should know things about you so that we wouldn’t make some medical mistakes—like if you’re allergic to medications, if you’re taking certain medications, especially life saving medications. Those are the things we need to know about you right away.
Why is important to get a medical history as quickly as possible when someone is in an emergent event?
If you have significant medical history that may guide us in terms of looking at what kind of event has happened to you, and what might have caused it, and what might we do to treat it. This is important information for potential treatment.
Who generally looks for emergency contact information?
The emergency contact information could start with the paramedic that responds if you’re in a car accident or if you’re on the job and you become incapacitated. It could be the paramedic that actually transports you to the hospital. In the emergency room, the physicians, and nurses who care for you, need that emergency information, and if you can’t tell us, we need somebody who can. It could prevent us from making a medical mistake because there’s something specific about your history we don’t know.
What about an e-mail someone may have received warning users of ICE that it triggers malicious text messages, viruses sent to phone to scan for ICE entries?
Absolutely not—urban legends are wonderful and according to the Urban Legends reference pages, there is no such danger; it’s all hoaxes. You can, in your personal cell phone, make an entry to delineate a phone number, you can call it whatever name you want. There’s no universal “big brother” that’s watching for ICE entries.
If someone enters their ICE information, do they stop carrying medical information with them, or is this an additional measure?
No. As you said, this is an additional safety measure. If you carry medical information, if you wear a medic alert bracelet, this is an additional layer of protection for you. |
