ICE

So what is ICE and why is it important?

If something was to happen to you would the emergency services know who to contact?

This was something that greatly concerned a Cambridge based paramedic Bob Brotchie back in 2005 following the London bomb attacks. It was found that at this time of crisis, emergency services were struggling to get contact details for victims of the attack. As a result Bob launched a national campaign with Vodafone to encourage people to store emergency contact details in their mobile phones.

By entering the acronym ICE (In Case of Emergency) into your mobile phone book you can log the name and number of someone you would like to be contacted in an emergency. If you have more than one contact name you can use numbers to help, e.g. ICE1, ICE2, ICE3, etc.

The campaign came into action following research carried out by Vodafone that showed more than 75 per cent of people carry no details of who they would like to be contacted following a serious accident.

The brainchild of the campaign, Bob, said: “I was reflecting on some of the calls I’ve attended at the roadside where I had to look through the mobile phone contacts struggling for information on a shocked or injured person. It’s difficult to know who to call. Someone might have “mum” in their phone book but that doesn’t mean they’d want them contacted in an emergency. Almost everyone carries a mobile phone now, and with ICE we’d know immediately who to contact and what number to ring”.

The idea has now spread as far as the USA and Australia and had gathered over the last few years.

Bob has also started to urge mobile manufacturers to take it on board by adding ICE headings to phones before they are sold.

So do you have an ICE contact in your phone? If not get one stored just in case of an emergency.

See http://incaseofemergency.org/