Newcomers Prep Tips

https://www.timestelegram.com/news/20200102/low-cost-emergency-preparedness-tips-offered


Good morning Newcomers,

Above link provides some low cost preparedness tips to get started.

Haven't written elsewhere about something on list and my scribbling journey will start here.

An insurance policy and a health care policy just might not be "essential" to carry in kit. Check with your local emergency management office or write to your state office.

Typically, the insurance companies provide wallet sized cards with needed info.

Insurance policies can be heavy and bulky in pulp form.

 

Thanks for the info.

I had my brother and son's telephone number stored in my phone under "In case of an Emergency", never thinking it would be used. Then had an 8 minute seizure in a supermarket, so the ambos were able to contact my brother to find out my medical history whilst I was seizing. Came in real handy.

Also implemented all the other info (other than the food) in linked article during recent severe bushfires.

Guess what I'm saying is that you never know when that kind of prep work is going to come in handy.

 

Might wanna consider putting your emergency contact info on a paper rather than in your phone. During emergency situation the first thing any responder would do is to check your pocket for any kind of printed documents and NOT the content of your phone (which is extremely tedious to do)

 

Didn't think of that. It would be a bit difficult to remember to carry around contact info on your person every time you went out the door though. I think most people immediately (as was my case) check your phone, as everyone carries one around with them nowadays. With the iphone, the "in case of emergency" is fairly quick and easy to access. Not sure about other phones though. Presume they all now have a similar feature.

Thinking about it, I wonder if emergency services here are trained to look at phones as a port of call to get info.

Not sure if the feature still works if the phone is locked. I don't lock mine as I find it a pain the the butt, but most other people I know do keep their phones locked in case they leave them somewhere.

Edit: Just locked my phone and checked. When you go to access the phone, it comes up with "enter passcode" and has "emergency" on the bottom of the phone. When you press that, it bring up "medical ID". On pressing that, it displays emergency contacts. So emergency services can easily access emergency contact numbers. Very handy feature.

 

You know I'm one of the rare people who advocate for the use of smartphone in survival situation and outside the grid, however in this case it is far better to have such information printed on a paper (preferably waterproof paper) along with any other printed document such as your driving license, health insurance, etc

Although "In case of Emergency" is a feature in iPhone (I can't be sure for certain because I couldn't afford to buy any iPhone), that is NOT the case with other phone brand and it certainly never been a feature in any Android version that I knew of.

 

Fair enough. I'm just saying it's a good feature if you've got it and worth putting the info in just in case.

In my personal case last year, it was very useful. Having had an 8 minute seizure and nearly dying, it was good they were able to contact my brother straight away so he could give them info and come to the hospital. They had managed to do this by the time I came around, so given the time the ambos would have taken to arrive (at the minimum 5 minutes I would think), it can't have taken them long to find the info on the phone.

I will however put a piece of paper with relevant details in my purse as well in future. Good luck to the emergency services going through my purse and finding it though, hahahaha!