Numbers Your Cell Phone Should Have Stored
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Everyone has a cell phone now a days, from the 5 year old kid to the 95 year old grand dad. As a Tech rep for AT&T Mobility I get allot of weird calls, some more strange than others. Yesterday I received a call from a rather frantic mother needing the number to the poison control center. Her young child had apparently gotten into the cabinet under the sink and drank something he shouldn’t have. I quickly looked up the number and transferred her directly. After the call I began wondering why she called in to AT&T for this. The only thing I can think of is that she was panicked and for some reason she dialed 611 rather than 911. This got me thinking about what numbers you should have stored in your cell phone. So, here are a few suggestions. If you do not store any other numbers, these should be stored.
1. Police/Fire: An emergency may not be severe enough to call 911. Having the numbers directly to the offices will help in those situations. Kitty stuck in a tree type thing.
2. ICE (In Case of Emergency): This is a number of someone who emergency personnel can call if you are in an accident and cannot answer questions. It should be the number to someone who knows your medical history and can help emergency personnel concerning your care. Emergency personnel are trained to look for this number in your cell phone.
3. Poison Control: This number is important, especially if you have young children. Searching for a number in a stressful situation is tough, as indicated by the call I received yesterday. Having the number already stored helps tremendously.
4. Doctor/Pediatrician: These numbers are good for the same reason the Police/Fire numbers are. For those situations that may not require an immediate emergency room visit, such as when little Timmy breaks out in hives and you want to get an opinion before spending the dough on the ER.
5. Animal Control: Stray animals can be a problem and even cause serious injury to people. Down here we have allot of alligators and animal control is constantly being called to remove one from a swimming pool or the middle of the road.
6. Next Door Neighbor: In most cases, your neighbors are your friends and they can be a source of help and information should something happen while you are away from your house. Hear of a fire in your area while you are visiting family? Call up your neighbor to make sure your house is still standing.
7. Car Insurance: This is important should you be involved in an accident while on the road and, other than 911, should be the first number you call.
8. Nearby Hospitals: We’ve all been in the situation where you cannot find a friend or family member and know they should be at home or other place. The worst comes to mind and you try the hospitals to see if something has happened. Having these numbers will help you in this stressful time.
9. Water/Power Company: Handy for when your water/power is not working. Make sure you have paid your bill before reporting it though.
And finally…
10. Take Out Restaurant: Once you find one that is open late, that’s the one you keep. handy for those late night munchies.
Did I miss any? Drop me a comment and let me know other numbers that should be stored in your cell phone.
5 Comments
BlackWolf
August 19th, 2008
at 5:51pm
I actually have the number to the Base Military Police because my wife is a diabetic. While it doesn’t happen often (less than once a year), every once in a while her blood sugars will drop too low and she’ll go into insulin shock (too much insulin from her pump, but didn’t eat anything to keep her blood glucose up).
Usually, it’s not too severe, but there have been times when she is so far out of it she can’t help herself. Since I spend a lot of time “traveling”, I decided that I needed to have the non-emergency number for the MPs in my phone. This is because dialing 911 from outside the area gets you your local police, not the police where the emergency is.
To make a long story short - my wife’s blood glucose crashed, and I had, at that moment, decided to call her. When she answered the phone, mumbled something incoherently, and then hung up, I knew there was a problem.
I called back several times, and got no answer - so, because I knew it was serious (if it wasn’t, she’d have eventually picked up the phone and I’d would have been able to coax her into drinking a coke or something else with sugar in it) I called the number I had stored for the MPs.
They answered, and I explained that I was in a foreign country, that I couldn’t dial 911, and that my wife needed an ambulance at our residence. The MP took my info, called the ambulance for me, and sent a squad car out to help.
When my wife finally recovered enough to give a call later that day, she said the paramedics were amazed that I’d been able to place a call to the MPs from 7000 miles away… The MP that I called even called her to check and make sure she was ok later that day and he too was amazed.
It really pays to keep those local non-emergency numbers handy!
BlackWolf
Mark
August 20th, 2008
at 6:28am
The about ICE is that if you use it, everytime the person calls you, it comes up as ICE instead of that person…anybody have an idea on how to get around this?
ICE calling or ICE2 calling is annoying!
Jim Pimms
August 21st, 2008
at 10:57am
I’d add my natural gas supplier’s Odor Hotline. Depending on the severity, it’s a call I may not want to make from inside the house.
Jim Pimms
August 21st, 2008
at 11:16am
Mark, I just used the existing SIM phonebook entries and prefixed them with ICE. So if my wife calls, my phone might display “ICE Laurie cell”, or “ICE Laurie work”, or “ICE home”. Those descriptions may also be useful to emergency personnel.
Mike (Republic of Texas)
April 10th, 2009
at 1:31am
What about ICE house?
In Texas, an “ice house” is what we call certain types of bars…