PSA: Medical IDs

I recently had a fascinating conversation with a group of friends about emergency preparedness. We were talking about a scary incident that had happened to someone we knew and questioned whether or not we would be prepared to help someone having an emergency if we were confronted with the nightmare situation of watching some choke, drown, or even have a heart attack. A few of us in the group had gotten certified in a Red Cross Emergency Course and others lamented that they hadn’t but really wanted to. That prompted me to share with the group about how I had recently been reading a blog (story here) about a young woman, newly-married, whose husband had suffered a heart attack while on his morning run. For hours he was at the hospital fighting for his life all alone and was categorized as a “John Doe” because they did not know who his emergency contact was so they therefore could’t identify him. He was unconscious but had his phone on him when he was running. After-the-fact he and his young wife realized that he could have easily been identified if he had filled out the Apple Medical ID page on his phone. After reading I immediately did it for myself and plan on encouraging making other loved ones in my life do the same thing. It’s as simple as touching the “Emergency” word on the bottom left of the login screen. From the next screen you can call 911 from the phone without knowing the password or you can click on the words “*Medical ID”. On the next screen you will find an emergency contact, blood type, allergies, height, and weight – all very useful information when a person is unconscious and needing medical treatment. My hope is that most of us will never need to find this screen for another or need someone to find and use this screen for us, but I have found that in all things it is always better to be safe than sorry. Please do forward this post along to anyone you know, love, and care about, because this could really help them in the future. And for those who would like to learn how to do CPR or the Heimlich maneuver you can sign up for a class with the Red Cross here.  Classes can be taken at their locations or they will send a certified professional to your home to certify and teach you on your own. I took a class with a few dear friends and it ended up being both informative and fun. Let’s do this people. It’s always better to be prepared.