Have you ICEd your Cellphone?

[Illinois] Governor Blagojevich directs first responders to utilize “In Case of Emergency” entries in cell phones.

Calling it a simple step that could make a life or death difference during an emergency, Governor Rod R. Blagojevich recently announced a statewide initiative to encourage Illinoisans to save “In Case of Emergency” entries in their personal cell phones under the acronym “ICE”. That information could be accessed by emergency personnel at an accident scene or in the hospital emergency room to contact a family member or friend, who could provide potentially life-saving medical details about the incapacitated victim.

The governor’s initiative has directed all state emergency personnel to look for ICE numbers when helping individuals who are unconscious or otherwise unable to provide personal information. He also encouraged local police, firefighters, emergency medical technicians (EMTs), hospital personnel, and other emergency workers to do the same.

Blagojevich said, “Cell phones have become extremely common – everyone from school-aged children, to busy parents and business people, to senior citizens carry phones most of the time. But many cell phone users aren’t aware of the fact that their phones can be used to provide critical contact information that could help save their life in an emergency situation. Today I’m asking everyone with cell phones to take a few minutes to put their ICE information into their phones. I’m also directing all our state’s emergency personnel to look for this information when victims can’t provide it themselves.”

The governor also announced that Sprint Nextel and Cellular One are joining with the state to promote ICE through a variety of ways, such as including information about the ICE program in customer invoices and promoting the program on their websites.

The PR machine got that word out around here a handful of months ago - it seems like a good idea. I've had mine programmed since.

Mine says in case of emergency - call 911!

Great, so I bleed to death while they try to find my (non-existent) cellphone in the wreckage!

Yea, cell phones and EMT's are just evil things.

david_42 said:

Great, so I bleed to death while they try to find my (non-existent) cellphone in the wreckage!

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Or maybe they just spotted the "Organ Donor" on your license...

For the record . . .
After 11 years as a firefighter/EMT and 8 of those years being a firefighter/paramedic and the last 9 months being promoted to Lt . . . .the absolutely last thing I do is look for a GD cell phone to call anyone (by last I mean after the rig is back in quaters and I'm having a cig comes first) and if I EVER see anyone on one of my scenes looking for a F'ing cell phone instead of dealing with the situation at hand I swear to god they'll wish they had never heard of ICE.

If you want to take the time and "ICE" your phone feel free but just a warning, no one is going to try to contact your family until AFTER you are at the hospital and your cell phone is either back at the scene lost in the mess or being towed away with your car. If for some reason your family needs to be contacted thats the Police/Sherrif's job or a social worker at the ER, they are good at it and they are trained at it.

Trust me, last thing you want is Joe Sh1tman the Firefighter, EMT, or Paramedic calling you and letting your loved ones know you have been severly injured or killed.

My brother suffered a nearly fatal head injury 2000 miles away from where the rest of the family lives. He was coming home from work when he was injured and slipped into unconsciousness. Luckily he had his work ID badge; the emergency personnel called his employers, who in turned called us. If the injury had happened a few hours later when his place of employment had closed, we wouldn't have found out until the following day. If it had happened on Friday evening, we wouldn't have found out at least until Monday. This matter of a few days could have been very significant; the injury was so severe that the docs didn't expect him to survive, and although he's OK now I am SO grateful I had the opportunity to visit him in the hospital; it could have possibly been the last time I got to see him.

This happened a few years ago before ICE had become more common. If my brother had left the house without his billfold (which he does sometimes, but like many people rarely leaves his cel phone behind) he would have been an unidentified "John Doe" in the hospital. I know for a fact that not only did the hospital check his ID, they checked his cel phone too, but they probably didn't have time to scroll through all 100 numbers and try to decipher which ones might be family. If ICE had been in common usage AND he had an ICE entry in his cel phone, we would have been notified immediately. Because of this very personal experience, my whole family has an ICE entry in our cel phones.

I'm with you, Maria, no matter what Pumbaa's beliefs are.

I WOULD rather have Joe sh1tman hand over a cellphone to the cops or hospital, who can then quickly locate my loved ones. If my wife or son were in such an accident, I'd want them to find me IMMEDIATELY. And since we don't have a land-line, it's not as easy.

I think it has more to do with people working at hospitals then paramedics....

I set mine up about a year ago, I tried creating an ICE caller but whenever SWMBO called it just said ICE even though she was already programmed in under her actual name. Since her name starts with A and is the first # listed in my phonebook, I just changed it her to name A - ICE

I really don't see what it can hurt for an individual to to it, while there is an upside.

Maria that right there is a perfect example why you never leave the house without ID With an ID it takes about 30 seconds to find more info then anyone ever needs.

If ya want to ICE your phone BVBG is right it wont hurt, odds are it wont help either.

Would you call Orpheus' ICE number?

Hmmmmm.

When I visited the hospital someone in social services had mentioned they had looked through his cel phone looking for some clue as to if he had family or not. His condition was so critical that they really didn't expect him to live through the night, and they didn't want family to hear this news from a third source but they couldn't find a number that was obviously identifiable and he couldn't tell them anything either.

For my family, it wasn't an issue of his being identified, it was the fact that we had to track him down based on second-hand information (which was in no way anyone's fault... it was just the way things happened). The hospital didn't give his workplace much info on his condition, only that he was injured and if they had a way of contacting us. When the workplace called, we thought he maybe broke a leg or something, it didn't sound urgent. We had to practically jump through hoops, but when we finally got hold of someone at the hospital, we learned how serious it was. If they had called us directly, with a phone number provided by my brother, we might have had a bit easier time getting info (patient privacy and all.)

My thoughts are this; the hospital checked his cel phone. If ICE had been around then, they would have had a better chance of finding our phone numbers and they or the police could have contacted us directly. Maybe since ICE is becoming more common, police and/or hospitals will check specifically for this.

The experience I had with my brother left me with the impression that the people in hospital social services do what they can to notify families of injured patients. I don't know if this was just that one hospital, or if social services is that way at most/all hospitals and to be honest I hope I never have the need to find out again. But since I know someone there took the time to check his phone, I've made sure I and my family now have an ICE number. I chalk it up to cheap insurance.

MariaAZ said:

My brother suffered a nearly fatal head injury 2000 miles away from where the rest of the family lives. He was coming home from work when he was injured and slipped into unconsciousness. Luckily he had his work ID badge; the emergency personnel called his employers, who in turned called us. If the injury had happened a few hours later when his place of employment had closed, we wouldn't have found out until the following day. If it had happened on Friday evening, we wouldn't have found out at least until Monday. This matter of a few days could have been very significant; the injury was so severe that the docs didn't expect him to survive, and although he's OK now I am SO grateful I had the opportunity to visit him in the hospital; it could have possibly been the last time I got to see him.

This happened a few years ago before ICE had become more common. If my brother had left the house without his billfold (which he does sometimes, but like many people rarely leaves his cel phone behind) he would have been an unidentified "John Doe" in the hospital. I know for a fact that not only did the hospital check his ID, they checked his cel phone too, but they probably didn't have time to scroll through all 100 numbers and try to decipher which ones might be family. If ICE had been in common usage AND he had an ICE entry in his cel phone, we would have been notified immediately. Because of this very personal experience, my whole family has an ICE entry in our cel phones.

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I'd expect that a car registration, drivers license, credit card, any number of things that people normally carry on them would allow law enforcement to contact the family rather quickly. While I'm glad that they were able to contact you and your family through his employer, I'm sure that there were other options at their disposal had the accident been a few hours later.

As a ER nurse, it CAN be helpful to have the info and a contact number for someone. In the past 10yrs I can not remember more than two instances that we didn't know any information or couldn't find it out. That being said, it would can't hurt to put some basic info and a contact number in a cell phone. Just make sure you put the important info in there, and a GOOD contact person. I just hope none of us needds to use it, or have it used

Blagojevich is an idiot.


Last year he proposed a new program: 1 free book a year for every child from 0 to 18 yeras of age. He then proposed cutting funding to libraries.

Toot said:

Blagojevich is an idiot.


Last year he proposed a new program: 1 free book a year for every child from 0 to 18 yeras of age. He then proposed cutting funding to libraries.

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If you knew about the damage George Ryan did to Illinois' budget, you'd better understand the cuts. Blago got the honor of fixing an f'd up state, and he knew he would take some crap for it.

Or are you thinking he's a moron because he insists on providing no-cost health care for all children in Illinois? Heck, he practically wiped out the cost of their shots.

Cheesefood said:

If you knew about the damage George Ryan did to Illinois' budget, you'd better understand the cuts. Blago got the honor of fixing an f'd up state, and he knew he would take some crap for it.

Or are you thinking he's a moron because he insists on providing no-cost health care for all children in Illinois? Heck, he practically wiped out the cost of their shots.

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Great. So I'm paying taxes to pay for the poor to have access to better healthcare than I can afford??!!!!! I get an HMO at my $10 an hour job so the poor can have FULL medical benefits??!!!! It's not just the children. He has come out and said he wants full medical benefits for ALL the poor in our state. Better benefits than I can get. Can you see why I'm not too happy with that situation?

Don't paint Blago as some sort of white knight. He's scent has already been around a few scandals. He just hasn't had as much time as Ryan had to sink his claws in.. but he's making strides....

Nobody wins a Chicago politics debate.

Toot said:

Great. So I'm paying taxes to pay for the poor to have access to better healthcare than I can afford??!!!!! I get an HMO at my $10 an hour job so the poor can have FULL medical benefits??!!!! It's not just the children. He has come out and said he wants full medical benefits for ALL the poor in our state. Better benefits than I can get. Can you see why I'm not too happy with that situation?

Don't paint Blago as some sort of white knight. He's scent has already been around a few scandals. He just hasn't had as much time as Ryan had to sink his claws in.. but he's making strides....

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I have absolutely no problem with paying higher taxes knowing that poor children have access to healthcare.

If you're unhappy with your wages or benefits, find a new job or get some training for a higher paying job. You can also hate Blago for raising minimum wage and being for allowing foreign prescription drugs so that people will save money.

IB4L FTW

aseelye said:

I'd expect that a car registration, drivers license, credit card, any number of things that people normally carry on them would allow law enforcement to contact the family rather quickly. While I'm glad that they were able to contact you and your family through his employer, I'm sure that there were other options at their disposal had the accident been a few hours later.

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I don't remember ever providing "next of kin" information on my car registrations or credit cards. I MIGHT have been asked when I renewed my driver's license about 10 years ago (our state has what amounts to lifetime licenses, I only have to go in for a photo every so often) or any other documents I carry in my billfold. My brother doesn't have any of those documents anyway; he has no credit cards, doesn't own a car (NYC has fantastic public transportation, and parking fees are outrageous according to him) and doesn't have a driver's license.

I am not saying that people don't carry other identification that can be used by the police to track down families, just that all my brother had on him was his billfold, his cell phone (both in pockets) and a briefcase that DID have personal identifiable information within but unfortunately "mysteriously disappeared" in the crowd by the time the paramedics and police arrived.