ICE (in case of emergency) thing going around from a Paramedic's POV
I have seen this little email/meme/whatever you wish to call it going around in a few places and I feel that I have to make a couple of comments on it.
Paramedics will turn to a victim's cell phone for clues to that person's identity. You can make their job much easier with a simple idea that they are trying to get everyone to adopt: ICE.
ICE stands for In Case of Emergency. If you add an entry in the contacts list in your cell phone under ICE, with the name and phone no. of the person that the emergency services should call on your
behalf, you can save them a lot of time and have your loved ones contacted quickly. It only takes a few moments of your time to do.
Paramedics know what ICE means and they look for it immediately.
ICE your cell phone NOW!
Please pass this one along
Just to clarify...as a medic my primary function on a scene is to treat a patient. The only ID that I will make a relatively immediate search for (if the patient is unable to speak for themselves) is medic alert. I do not go through people's wallets and I certainly do not take the time to look for someone's cell phone and then browse through their address book to find a phone number and then waste even more time in calling someone. It is not my job and I do not have the time on a scene to do that. The police might do this, but usually it is the hospital staff who calls the next of kin or emergency contacts. I do not and will not.
As well, and this is something most people do not seem to know, I can *not* talk to anyone other than the receiving hospital staff about the patient and their condition. I am bound by the laws of patient confidentiality. Therefore, even if I were to look up this number and call someone, I couldn't say anything.
I am not saying that having an emergency contact number in your phone is a bad thing, but as a medic I will not be the one to use it on a scene.
Paramedics will turn to a victim's cell phone for clues to that person's identity. You can make their job much easier with a simple idea that they are trying to get everyone to adopt: ICE.
ICE stands for In Case of Emergency. If you add an entry in the contacts list in your cell phone under ICE, with the name and phone no. of the person that the emergency services should call on your
behalf, you can save them a lot of time and have your loved ones contacted quickly. It only takes a few moments of your time to do.
Paramedics know what ICE means and they look for it immediately.
ICE your cell phone NOW!
Please pass this one along
Just to clarify...as a medic my primary function on a scene is to treat a patient. The only ID that I will make a relatively immediate search for (if the patient is unable to speak for themselves) is medic alert. I do not go through people's wallets and I certainly do not take the time to look for someone's cell phone and then browse through their address book to find a phone number and then waste even more time in calling someone. It is not my job and I do not have the time on a scene to do that. The police might do this, but usually it is the hospital staff who calls the next of kin or emergency contacts. I do not and will not.
As well, and this is something most people do not seem to know, I can *not* talk to anyone other than the receiving hospital staff about the patient and their condition. I am bound by the laws of patient confidentiality. Therefore, even if I were to look up this number and call someone, I couldn't say anything.
I am not saying that having an emergency contact number in your phone is a bad thing, but as a medic I will not be the one to use it on a scene.