Not long ago I was on a non-Pandani activity when a member of our party had a medical incident and became unconscious for a long time. For ages no-one was able to contact his wife until eventually she was tracked down via a friend of a friend. That got us thinking about emergency contact details.
For official Pandani events the website shows all the attendees including their emergency contacts (you have provided your details haven’t you?) and organisers should take that information with them. So a Pandani trip should not have the same problem we encountered. But you don’t spend you whole life doing Pandani things (unfortunately!) so what if there is an emergency at some other time?
Smartphones these days can show emergency ID information even when locked. There are two parts to this:
- You need to set up your phone so that it can show emergency ID information
- You need to be aware of how to access that on someone else’s phone if the need arises
I’m going to give a brief outline of how to do that on an iPhone. I don’t have access to an Android device so won’t presume to tell you about one of those but there seems to be lots of how-to stuff online. (Maybe someone could let me know and I’ll update this post.)
To access someone’s emergency details on an iPhone:
- Try to unlock it until it asks for the passcode and shows a keypad
- Touch “Emergency” at the bottom of the screen and you get the phone keypad to dial whatever number you like (maybe 000)
- Touch “* Medical ID” below the keypad to display whatever emergency information the phone’s owner has set up
To set up your iPhone so that others can find your emergency contacts and perhaps other relevant information about you:
- Go to Settings > Health > Medical ID
- Touch “Edit” and fill in whatever information you feel is necessary
- Make sure that Emergency Access (last item on that screen) is switched to “Show When Locked”
You never know when you or someone else might need this.
Pandani Blog 
Thanks Peter for a very useful warning. Emergencies can happen to any of us and this would certainly make it easier to get help if needed.
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Thank you Peter, I’ve just updated my phone. Cheers Karen Prince Launceston
Sent from my iPhone
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A suggestion – for those of us who have android phones or who prefer pen and paper, could the attendance form have a column added for emergency phone numbers. While the walkers are forming the welcome circle, the walk leader could pass around the attendance form (on a clipboard) for walkers to add their emergency number. The leader would take the form on the walk, thus having instant access to the required number. This method would also mean that the emergency number was the most relevant on that particular day (ie the usual emergency contact may be overseas, not answer the phone… etc)
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Julie, I think the club has those issues covered but thanks for your suggestions. If organisers print out the attendance list from the website the emergency numbers will already be there (unless a member has not provided it). So there shouldn’t be any need to gather emergency numbers at the start of the walk. You make a valid point about the emergency contact being unavailable, but on the trip registration form there is an option to enter a different emergency contact.
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Thanks Peter. Your post prompted me to update my health details on my phone and it was good to read how to access them on some else’s Iphone in an emergency.
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Thanks for that info Peter, I have a Samsung (android) and was able to do something similar â it is under Settings > Lock screen > Contact information and the number shows on the lock screen without having to navigate any further.
Walk safe everyone.
Kind regards, Gary
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Thanks Peter, very helpful information. Prompted me to do some phone editing to update 😊
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