Cell Phone in Emergencies

After searching buildings and rubble for Haiti earthquake survivors, there were some people who were discovered because they were able to text for help. Some people have an emergency cell phone for that purpose only, and others, like most people in developed countries, have one for that and convenience. In these earthquake scenarios, it has been a reason to hope, to look, to stay alive, to have a location to start searching in.

An emergency worker came up with the idea of ICE, which is In Case of Emergency numbers which everyone should have programmed into their cell. Go into the contact list of your cell, and enter ICE numbers in whatever order you want, such as ICE1, ICE2 etc.

If your phone has speed dial, you can hold down the number on speed dial you are trying to reach, and in a couple seconds, the number will be sent through. This is a huge assistance if you are unable to move around well or have a minimal time to get through to a contact.

More tips:

If you set your speed dial for 911 on #9, you’ll easily get to it in emergencies.

To keep track of loved ones,  cell phones have GPS abilities.  The phone can be programmed for people to easily dial home but not other numbers. Once the phone is attached to the person’s clothing, their location is identifiable, which means a lot for those who worry about loved ones suffering dementia. If your phone has the GPS feature, you can go to buddyway.com, which enables you to download their free program to your phone. Amazingly enough, you will be able to access the phone location on the internet, including where it is, in real time, where it went, and length of trip. Not bad. In fact it makes you want to do this for every phone you have. I can think of other uses for that, but they are not relevant here.  There are other tracking modes which will be covered in another article.

Know the emergency numbers for the countries you are in. For example, North America uses 911. The following countries use 999: United Kingdom, many Commonwealth countries and those formerly part of the British colonies including Trinidad, Tobago, Bangladesh, Botswana, Ghana, Kenya, Singapore, Hong Kong, Malaysia, and the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain, Macao and others. Always check the country’s emergency number before traveling there.

Although myths are rampant for cell phone abilities, you can dial 800-FREE411 to get a number free of charge in some countries.

Voice dialing feature – most cell phones have this now. Do yourself a favor and learn how. Your manual or a phone representative will show you how.

Most phones have internet options which you may or may not have signed up for. If you have it, you can email someone on your list.