ICE takes off

The idea of an East Anglian paramedic Bob Brotchie, to include an ICE number on our mobile phones seems to have taken off since the London bombing atrocity of last Thursday.

Mr Brotchie's idea, dreamt up a short while before London bombings was prompted by the difficulty he had in contacting next of kin when attending some emergencies.

If you are not already aware of his system it is this. We should all have pre- programmed into our cell phones an 'ICE' (In Case of Emergency) number so that should the worst happen emergency service personnel have a uniform way of searching for the details of those we wish to be contacted in the first instance.

I heard of this idea on Friday, as I assume many did, when shortly after the London bombing emails regarding this idea were winging there electronic way from one corner of the earth to another with some frequency. From the outset it seemed to me like an excellent way of helping oneself and those taking care of us in emergency but my concern was that if only relatively few of us joined the scheme it would fail. Well this item on the news this morning would suggest that it is set to hopefully become the norm.

No help I know for those who don't carry a cell phone but the majority of us do now and it surely must be preferable to the emergency services having to trawl through all the personal belongings of an individual in an effort to contact their next of kin. Currently like many of us I carry those details but it would waste the valuable time of the police, ambulance service etc. in finding it, if in fact they could at all. In my case the information was contained on a PDA which until this idea made me consider my situation, it had not dawned on me is password protected! Duh.

So go now and 'ICE programme' your phone, the idea looks set to be winner and it's quite comforting to know that should the worst happen your nearest and dearest can be contacted immediately.