This smartphone feature could save your life. Here's how to activate it

Medical ID

Maybe the most important feature of emergency info is Medical ID. As the name suggests, this feature lets you put in all of your medical information. You can put in your names, weight and height, your ID number, blood type, list of medications you might be taking, date of birth, medical notes and any allergies you might have. The number of types of information you can put in varies with every phone manufacturer, but the idea stays the same.

Medical ID can be accessed by anyone without unlocking your phone. The thought behind that, of course, is if you’re in distress you will need the help of somebody else. For example, let’s say somebody collapses in public and you are trying to help them. If this person has set up their Medical ID, and of course you know about the feature, you can pull out their phone, check who they are and learn important medical information like their blood type, which will be important for 911 emergency dispatchers.

 

The Medical ID option could also be really helpful among people with special needs, people who are prone to getting lost. These people could be your parents and grandparents, if they’ve come to a certain age. People afflicted by mental illnesses and other types of special needs people are also prone to getting lost or having an episode during which they cannot tell you who they are and if they’re having a problem.

Children get in trouble often too. If they need the help of a stranger, you cannot expect them to right away tell them if they have any allergies, or their blood type, especially with kids that are under the age of 10.

You might be asking yourself what parent could let their child go so far away that they might need the help of a stranger. But kids will be kids. They get easily distracted and are not good at following rules. You can be the best parent in the world and your kid could still get in trouble. That’s why I suggest that you also put the kid’s address in the medical notes on their phone.

Emergency calls

Speaking of kids, this next option might be the most important for them. You know how you can always make a call to 911 with any phone, even when it is locked? Well, with emergency info you can put other phone numbers that are accessible without unlocking the phone. This feature is set up in the same settings as Medical ID, and can help many, many people.

If once again, the owner of the phone is in distress, if they can’t explain to you what the problem is, you can call one of these numbers from their phone. The numbers show as contacts, so you can see if you’re calling someone’s mom or their friend, as long as these numbers are there.

Emergency calls is also very helpful if you’ve lost your phone. When someone finds it, they can easily contact one of the contacts you gave access to. Of course it all depends on the person that finds your phone and their intentions.

As someone whose brother has lost their phone twice, with emergency contacts set up, I can tell you that both times no one called to return the phone. This could be attributed to the fact that not enough people are aware of these features, and that’s why I am sharing them with you.

Emergency SOS

This function is getting more and more popular, as many phone brands start to add it to their user interface. Emergency SOS is a feature that is easily accessible on the iPhone by holding or clicking a couple of buttons. This triggers the special mode, which automatically calls your emergency hotline and then sends your location and status that you are in emergency to the contacts you chose for emergencies.

After that your phone automatically shows your Medical ID and disables your face or fingerprint unlock, accepting only your PIN/password to unlock.

If you’re a fan of thrillers and true-crime, and you’re wondering if one day you could be taken as a hostage, then Emergency SOS will give you peace of mind.