'ICE' on cell phones: A cool way to help in an emergency?
By Gina Kim -- Bee Staff Writer
Published 2:15 am PDT Saturday, August 13, 2005
Story appeared in Scene section, Page K1
Should you really be putting an emergency contact number in your cell
phone under the acronym "ICE"?
An e-mail making the rounds urges people to do it, claiming that
paramedics turn to a victim's cell phone for clues to a person's
identity.
Sell It Yourself
That's true - in Britain. Emergency responders in the Sacramento area
report they don't necessarily look at cell phones, but a few think
it's a good idea.
The campaign to get people to put ICE numbers - for In Case of
Emergency - in their cell phones was launched in April by a paramedic
in England, according to the Web site of East Anglian Ambulance, the
unit where the paramedic works. With the support of Vodafone, a
British cellular telephone company, the goal is to get every Briton to
enter a number in his or her cellular phone book under the ICE acronym
so emergency personnel can head there first.
Realistically, if paramedics can't easily figure out who a person is -
with a purse or wallet - they're not going to start thumbing through a
victim's cell phone, said Sacramento Fire Department spokesman Niko
King.
"We're so focused on patient care and mitigating the hazards of an
incident, getting a patient out of the environment and to a hospital,
that knowing who they are, their date of birth and their address is
good information to pass on to the hospital, but it's not critical to
us performing our jobs," he said.
But it will help hospitals, said Theresa Arciniega, manager of the
department of clinical social services at UC Davis Medical Center.
"There is so much time lost in looking for next of kin or identifying
an individual," she said. "If this could cut through that, we could
get families here sooner and we can respond sooner."
Arciniega's department hunts down relatives of trauma victims to glean
information about past medical history, how aggressively to treat
victims and, in fatal cases, answers to questions such as organ
donation.
Hearing about the ICE campaign, Arciniega plans to hold a meeting with
her staff to get them to look for the designated emergency contact in
cell phones. Right now, they simply scroll through a phone and make
calls haphazardly.
"They'll call until they get a hit," Arciniega said.
The ICE system is far from foolproof: Not everyone has a cell phone,
cell phones won't necessarily make it through an accident or
emergency, and figuring out how to access phone books can be
complicated in a crunch.
But mostly, it will be helpful only if everyone actually does it.
"I can see how this is going to be useful if people buy into it and
actually provide that information," said King, of the Sacramento Fire
Department. "I'm never opposed to having more information." But King
thinks medical history bracelets or cards can be more useful in a
life-or-death situation than a phone number. And the time wasted to
see if the person has an ICE contact could be vital.
King himself hasn't quite bought into the effort.
"Let's put it this way: I haven't encouraged my wife to put it in her
phone," he said.
Oh, and the e-mail saying people with ICE programmed into their cell
phones will get viruses that will drain you of all your money really
is a hoax.
For more information about Internet hoaxes, go to
www.snopes.com or
www.truthorfiction.com.
http://www.sacbee.com/content/busine...14240175c.html
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-- Hilary Duff
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