Have You Setup Emergency Contacts in Your Phone in Case of an Emergency?

Our annual reminder to review, update, or draft our estate planning documents is coming up: Health Care Decisions Day on April 16th.

We’ll get into more about Health Care Directives shortly but first things first – setting up emergency contacts in your phone. So important! Why? If a parent is shuffling four pre-teens or teenagers from four different families to practice when a tragic car accident happens, first responders don’t know who the teenagers are because most don’t carry a form of identification on them. First responders don’t know who to call and don’t know their medical info. But today, most teenagers always have their phone on them. Emergency responders can then use their phone to find emergency contacts and medical information immediately but only if the data is populated.

Thankfully phone programmers have designed phones so that only emergency contact information can be accessed by anyone without needing a passcode. Adding emergency contacts and medical information to your phone is a “boring but vital” task. And it’s easy to do. Here’s how:

For iPhone

1. Open the Health app and tap your profile picture in the upper-right corner.

2. Tap Medical ID.

3. Scroll down to Emergency Contacts and hit Edit in the top right corner.

4. Tap the plus button (+) to add a contact from your list.

5. Assign their relationship.

6. CRUCIAL STEP: Make sure SHOW WHEN LOCKED is toggled ON. This allows first responders to see this info without your pin.

For Android

Note: Menus vary slightly by manufacturer (Samsung vs Pixel), but the logic is the same.

1. Open Settings.

2. Look for Safety & Emergency. On older phones, check Users & Accounts, then Emergency Information. You may also get to “Emergency” by swiping from your locked screen. Tapping Emergency or Emergency Call will not immediately make the call but will allow you to access your Emergency Information for set up.

3. Tap Emergency Contacts.

4. Select Add Contact and choose the person from your address book.

5. You can also tap Medical Information in the same menu to add allergies, blood type, or medications.

6. Most modern Androids, also have the functionality to set up a custom message to appear on your lock screen where you can write “ICE: (Name)(Number)” for in case of emergency. Check Settings > Display > Lock Screen > Add text on lock screen.

Now To Test if it Worked

To see what an emergency responder or a stranger would see:

• iPhone: Bring up the passcode screen and tap Emergency in the bottom left, then tap Medical ID.

• Android: Swipe up on the lock screen, tap Emergency Call, then tap View Emergency Information.

Now, back to Health Care Directives. We welcome you to read a former article where attorney Kim Literovich sat down with Family Nurse Practitioner Susan Peller to discuss the importance of Health Care Directives and what happens if you become incapacitated and don’t have one. What do emergency medical responders do then? Read that article here to learn more.

If you have questions about drafting or updating your estate plan, healthcare directive or power of attorney, our estate planning attorneys are happy to help. Our team has the breadth of experience for estates of all sizes to ensure it will meet your goals and act as you desire. Contact us at 507-345-1166 or www.blethenberens.com.