I was messing with my phone settings and somehow I found this (see screenshot). Never knew I had this setting. I filled it in and was wondering if the emergency services in Belgium (or anyone/anywhere else) uses it? (Think it is an option at the unlock screen.).
8 comments
When you’re a patient in an emergency, it’s not that likely someone will use your phone to call emergency services. They will use their own, or ask someone else to make the call.
As a bystander, you don’t want to spend time calling mom or dad on a complete stranger who clearly needs help. Or figure out how someone else’s phone works. You call 112. The less time wasted, the better.
Same with medical information. Emergency services have established protocols. They just want the basics and clear answers: did the patient eat / drink / medicate? “I don’t know” is a perfect answer and it’s enough for them to assess the situation and take whatever precautions needed.
There’s two things I can’t recommend highly enough:
Take a first aid class. They’ll teach you what you can and can’t do in an emergency. I was shocked to be confronted with how poorly I knew first aid or what I should do was when I took classes last year.
Install the 112 BE app. It’s specially designed for emergency services. It will send them your location, amongst other things. And helps you dial the right service.
I don’t think anyone will be specifically looking for it, but it might help if something happens and someone decides to check your phone
I don’t know, but it could be super useful when some honest soul finds your lost phone, because then they can call your emergency contact to let them know.
They might if it is configured. About a year ago a friend had a car accident on his way to my house and the lady in the ambulance called me using his phone to notify me about the accident and asking for his parents contact info.
I don’t know exactly how they unlocked his phone and were able to call me, but to me it sounds like they at least try to get into contact with someone once the initial care is done.
Only time I’ve ever used that is to get a lost phone back to it’s owner. That’s it
A colleague of mine is a freelance ambulance driver and this type of thing was brought up, and he had never heard about it, so not sure how wide spread this information is….
(paramedic) If we arrive at a situation an unconscious person with no extra information (found in a park, by strangers, …) and we notice the phone fast enough, we will usually check it, yeah.
When we check it, it’s mostly to see if it says anything about certain diseases: epilepsy, diabetic, heart/blood diseases,..
Other than that, in the emergency setting outside the hospital, there usually isn’t anything else that is really helpful for us.
In the hospital, they might use it for the emergency contacts, if we have no other way of information family.
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Edit:
You can put your blood type there as well, but if you have a trauma where transfusion is needed, they’ll recheck anyway, no matter what your smartphone says. Just not worth the risk.
Besides the fact that emergency personnel can retrieve that info, I understand this feature is expanded starting with the iPhone 14 : it will send messages to the contact info in case you are in a crash. It’s one of the new crash features : if the phone detects a crash, it will, except if you cancel, call the emergency and send text messages to your emergency contacts.
This new feature already caused issues (calling the emergency for someone on a ride in an amusement park) but there was a cool example on Reddit a couple of days ago : some guy was in an accident and was unconscious, but his mother had received text messages, one informing her of the crash and one informing her that the guy had been movel to another location (transported in an ambulance to the hospital, as she discovered later).