Lessons from London

WE'RE NOT AFRAID

A totally awesome website has been created to say a great big FUCK YOU to terrorists - okay, it doesn't say Fuck you, it says We're Not Afraid!

This speaks more to me than the whole God Bless America thing that happened here on 9/11. Not that it wasn't (and still is) a great sentiment, but it was unoriginal.

ROCK ON, London!

ICE ICE BABY

Since the bombings in London, there is a new cell phone initiative to help fire/rescue/police contact your next-of-kin. It's called ICE and stands for In Case of Emergency.

To its owner, the cell phone is an indispensable lifeline at times of crisis, reuniting loved ones separated by unforeseen events at the touch of a button. But for members of the emergency services making life-and-death decisions, the cell poses a conundrum: Which of the numbers stored in its electronic address book should they call to reach a casualty's next of kin?

Now a simple initiative, conceived by a paramedic in Britain, has gained momentum on both sides of the Atlantic to try to solve this problem. Cell users are being urged to put the acronym ICE -- "in case of emergency" -- before the names of the people they want to designate as next of kin in their cell address book, creating entries such as "ICE -- Dad" or "ICE -- Alison."

At least two police forces in the United States are considering the idea, according to the initiative's British-based promoters, who say there has been a flurry of interest since the recent bombings in London.

Paramedics, police and firefighters often waste valuable time trying to figure out which name in a cell phone to call when disaster strikes, according to current and retired members of the emergency services, who said they must look through wallets for clues, or scroll through cell address books and guess. Many people identify their spouse by name in their cell, making them indistinguishable from other entries.

"Sometimes dialing the number for 'Mum' or 'Dad' might not be appropriate, particularly if they are elderly, suffer from ill health or Alzheimer's," said Matthew Ware, a spokesman for the East Anglian Ambulance service, which is promoting the ICE initiative. "This would give paramedics a way of getting hold of the appropriate person in a few seconds."

(You can read read the whole article here.)

Makes sense to me, and makes me wonder why nobody thought of it sooner. Necessity is the mother of invention, I guess.

Case in point, when I was in a pretty serious car accident a few weeks ago, if I had been unconcious, the paramedics/state troopers would have gone thru my phone and seen my mom and dad's numbers and contacted them, but they wouldn't have known who to contact locally to meet me at the hospital because my man, like the article says, is listed by his first name.

So now I have designated all my emergency contacts - my man, and my mom, dad, and sister with ICE (in capital letters) next to their names in my contact list so, just in case, the right people will be contacted immediately.

Take care of yourselves and your loved ones. If tragedy strikes, don't keep them waiting and wondering - it is the worst kind of torture.

Sometimes even a bad answer is better than no answer at all.