The ICE phone number

[michalism4]

I heard this on a radio station a few weeks back and I think it needs to be used. There was a paramedic who went to a really bad MVA, the pt. was unresponsive so he could not get any information on who to call. He spent a very long time trying to get in touch with someone. after about an hour he did reach someone. He came up with the idea that everyone needs to have an ICE phone number in their cell phones.... In Case of Emergency. All you have to do when you put the name in the phone, put ICE instead of a name. Heck put the name after ICE! Most sensible people put police and fire on speed dial, why not an emercengy contact? Hopefully this can spread and will catch on as easy as 411 did.

[BushyFromOz]

This is interesting, though they have been talking about ICE since before the london tube bombings.

I see some merit in the idea, though there are many variables, the big one being the phone is actually on the pt themselves - which probably makes it fairly useless for mass cas, it also assumes that the phone survives the accident to begin with, and it also assumes those people listed under ICE actually have a detailed history of the patient, and is not just a best friend who know sarah well but still has no idea about pertinent medical history

My point is, it should be promoted as an extra measure, but people should not solely rely on this alone, and should make every effort to find further information from other belonging the pt may have, as well as their presentation

[akflightmedic]

Please do a search on this topic as we first discussed this almost 2 years ago when there was a huge movement everywhere for people to start this. We debated both the pro and con and for the most part it has no relevance for the prehospital personel rendering treatment.