I.C.E.

July 11, 2005 11:40 AM

Have you got ICE in your mobile? "Following the disaster in London . . . East Anglian Ambulance Service have launched a national "In case of Emergency (ICE)" campaign with the support of Falklands war hero Simon Weston. The idea is that you store the word "ICE" in your mobile phone address book, and against it enter the number of the person you would want to be contacted "In Case of Emergency". LINK.
posted by azul (30 comments total)

Assuming they can correlate your cellphone with your remains, this seems like an excelent idea.
posted by Balisong at 11:47 AM on July 11, 2005

This seems like a pretty good idea in any case. I've just added ICE to my cell and hope that it'll never have to get used.
posted by fenriq at 11:55 AM on July 11, 2005

It would be a lot easier if we just had embedded microchips inside our skulls, complete with I/O functionality.

Dating, for example, would be easier.
posted by jsavimbi at 11:56 AM on July 11, 2005

By the way, why do the East Anglican Ambulance Service have the ugliest ambulances possible?

jsavimbi, yeah, you want to let Microsoft write software to run your brain?
posted by fenriq at 11:57 AM on July 11, 2005

Why just "ICE" why not "In case of emergency". What if people want to store "ICE" is their crystal meth dealer or something?
posted by delmoi at 11:59 AM on July 11, 2005

I'm with delmoi. The acronym seems needlessly opaque since most cellphones I see now-a-days could display the whole phrase.

Aside from that, however, it's hard to use someone else's cell phone under ideal conditions, let alone during an emergency. I find that the interface is always just different enough from mine to throw me for a loop. Why not keep a clearly written card with instructions in your wallet or purse, near your ID? It'd probably take as long to do that by hand as it would to put an entry in your cellphone's address book.
posted by mmcg at 12:08 PM on July 11, 2005

Perhaps the colours of the East Anglian ambulances are in honour of Norwich City.
posted by squealy at 12:20 PM on July 11, 2005

Why just "ICE" why not "In case of emergency".

Either that or an allusion to Intrusion Countermeasures Electronics.
posted by nervousfritz at 12:27 PM on July 11, 2005

fenriq - that is a standard modern British ambulance. Still, you can't say they're not visible...
posted by altolinguistic at 12:30 PM on July 11, 2005

Um ... don't people usually "lock" their phones?
posted by kaemaril at 12:33 PM on July 11, 2005

Ice ice baby vanilla
Ice ice baby (oh-oh) vanilla
Ice ice baby vanilla
Ice ice baby vanilla ice
Yo man let's get out of here
posted by R. Mutt at 12:34 PM on July 11, 2005

I put "ICE" and then the person's name. Harder to do when you spell out "in case of emergency."

Um ... don't people usually "lock" their phones?

People should but usually don't.
posted by grouse at 12:36 PM on July 11, 2005

Somewhat related on the morbidity tip: Authorities asked those remaining along the Gulf Coast high-risk areas this weekend to write their names on their bodies in waterproof ink for identification. I wish I could remember where I read it...
posted by mkultra at 12:57 PM on July 11, 2005

altolinguistic, oh yeah, pretty easy to see, just pretty hard to look at.

mkultra, one of the people in my office just back from Florida (not a high-risk area) and didn't hear anything like that. But I'm thinking, if they're telling me to do that, its time to go and seek some shelter, no?
posted by fenriq at 12:59 PM on July 11, 2005

Why would an ambulance need dazzle camouflage?
posted by undecided at 1:08 PM on July 11, 2005

Don't most people already have an entry for either "home" or "mom" or "work" or some such thing on their phones?

We've found lost phones several times in the past couple of years, and have always been able to reunite them with their owners just by scrolling through the address book until we found one of those three entries.
posted by anastasiav at 1:28 PM on July 11, 2005

fenriq- Here it is.
posted by mkultra at 1:44 PM on July 11, 2005

Mine just says "Emergency Contacts," has my husband's cell, home, my dad's cell, and my parents' house. Of course, if mom and dad didn't live within one hour of me, I'd probably put someone else's number in there.
posted by Medieval Maven at 1:45 PM on July 11, 2005

I also thought "why would you want to put crystal meth into your phone?"

Maybe it'll help the battery last longer...
posted by clevershark at 2:27 PM on July 11, 2005

I'm limited to 10 character names for my phone entries, so I guess my family shouldn't be informed if I got blown up on the tube tomorrow. It's my own fault for having such an old phone. A Nokia 8210? What was I thinking?
posted by mleonard at 2:43 PM on July 11, 2005

There are war heros from the Falklands War?
posted by freebird at 3:51 PM on July 11, 2005

Damn. I thought this was going to be a link about blinging out one's cell phone.
posted by bdk3clash at 4:33 PM on July 11, 2005

In-car entertainment?
posted by Joeforking at 5:09 PM on July 11, 2005

freebird: There were two (sadly posthumous) VCs awarded during the Falklands, you've got Simon Weston, plus others ... so the answer's yes.
posted by kaemaril at 5:27 PM on July 11, 2005

Great idea, though I think cell phone manufacturers should just include this as part of the 'stuff about the owner' that you can usually fill out.

Um ... don't people usually "lock" their phones?

Why would I do that? If I lose my phone and it's unlocked there's a finite chance that an honest person will find it, and be able to figure out how to give it back to me.

If it's locked, it's 100% chance gone for good.
posted by mosch at 6:45 PM on July 11, 2005

If I lose my phone and it's unlocked there's also a finite chance that a dishonest person will find it, and be able to figure out hot to make lots of lovely highly expensive phonecalls on it, too. Depending on how your account/coverage is set-up you might be liable for some of that, especially if your phone was unsecured...

On my phone at least (Motorola T720) switching it on brings up a little screen which you can configure to show info on (mine has my e-mail address and home landline) before you are asked to enter the unlock code. My previous phones had a similar feature, so I assume it's not uncommon...
posted by kaemaril at 7:01 PM on July 11, 2005

I put "ICE" and then the person's name. Harder to do when you spell out "in case of emergency."

I just ICEd my mother. Since my Samsung doesn't allow multiple entries for one phone number, prepending the phrase was the best I could do. Emergency Contacts makes sense as well, I suppose -- I'll try to figure out a way to accomplish that. Um... You're all on notice now, too. In case of emergency, call my mom. Heck, if everyone that reads the article adds it and tells someone else what it means, we'll have helped push a helpful trend forward.
posted by VulcanMike at 8:22 PM on July 11, 2005

If I lose my phone and it's unlocked there's also a finite chance that a dishonest person will find it, and be able to figure out hot to make lots of lovely highly expensive phonecalls on it, too.

Ah, the beauty of a pay-as-you-go contract. If it gets stolen, there's a pretty low limit to the cost of the calls a thief can rack up.
posted by talitha_kumi at 1:25 AM on July 12, 2005

Don't most people already have an entry for either "home" or "mom" or "work" or some such thing on their phones?

I'm guessing the reason is that if I'm in an accident at 2:30 in the morning, they don't phone my (ficitious) 94 year old mum as the first port of call, but instead my flatmate.

I think it's a pretty good idea in that, while I doubt it will ever be used much by anyone, it's an incredibly easy way of potentially making things a bit easier in a bad situation.
posted by Hartster at 6:40 AM on July 12, 2005

VulcanMike, I had the same problem you did. I just put a "1" at the beginning of the number.
posted by skryche at 8:29 AM on July 12, 2005