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Programme Your Cell Phone to I-C-E

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I-C-E stands for "In Case of Emergency" - Make Sure it's on your Mobile Phone!

What if you had been caught up in a terrorist bomb attack like the ones on the Moscow Metro or London Underground? Did you know you can Programme Your Cell Phone to call your family to summon Life-Saving Urgent Help?

I wish I had known that when I was caught up in the four bomb attacks in London on 7-7-2005.

What if your safety were threatened by a suicide bomber like the terrorist attack on the Moscow Metro on 29th March 2010 or London on 7th July 2005, or New York on 9/11, or if you were to collapse, or suffer the threat of rape, assault or injury, or there were some other kind of emergency like being trapped in a lift or underground, or cornered by a dangerous dog.

A scream might attract attention, but summoning help on your mobile phone might make the difference between getting help from the police, fire services or a doctor urgently or lying unconscious in a puddle of blood until you are found.

This is the story of why I have ICE on my mobile phone

I.C.E - IN CASE OF EMERGENCY!

King's Cross Station, London July 7th 2005 - Muslim Terrorist bomb

I was at Kings Cross Station on 7/7 - England's 9/ll - when the bomb went off

type=textI didn't hear it, but I was shopping at Boots the Chemist, one of the station's many shops, when I noticed a huge number of people pouring out of the escalators. I knew instantly that something was wrong, as I had been caught up in bomb scares before, and had always been nervous at Kings Cross Station since the big fire there a few years previously. I dropped what I was buying and ran outside to catch a bus quickly before the crowds came, and it was then that I spotted the first ambulances and police cars arriving. It was just before 9.00 am.

My bus moved off immediately, the last bus permitted to park directly outside the station, and through the window I watched the crowd grow ominously. Difficult to know if it was a bomb scare, or another fire, like the fireball holocaust a few years earlier, when an escalator caught fire.

Photograph: Kings Cross Station after the Bomb blast on 7th July 2005

Not My First Bomb Scare on the Underground

The previous bomb scare was the work of IRA Terrorists

type=textI had been in a bomb scare at Oxford Street Station on the London underground before, in 1992 -

The feeling of panic is overwhelming, you feel the adrenalin surge in your blood, and the fight-or-flight instinct takes over. I have never been out of a station so quickly as I was that first time, when I was also trying to protect my daughter who was pregnant.

The normal passageway and stairs were blocked solid with people, and there was no way of knowing which route to take to get to the surface, and people were getting lost, threshing around and running about like ants in opposite directions.

Pushing and shoving, and dragging my daughter by the hand, we reached the surface and out into Oxford Street in record time, but she told me later that all the blood had drained from my face, and I was as white as a sheet and looked as though I was about to collapse.

photo attributed to Fair - Freedom Fighters (or, as we would say, Terrorists) Unite!

The Piccadilly Line, 9.25 a.m on 7/7

Somewhere between London Underground stations Russell Square and King's Cross

Bus bomb in Tavistock Square 7/7/05By 9.25 am on 7/7, I had reached my office and someone at Reception said that a bomb had gone off on the Piccadilly Line between Russell Square and King's Cross.

That was my usual route to work, and if I had not chosen in a moment of serendipity to travel overground that day, I might well have been on that train.

Photograph: The 34 Bus at Tavistock Square, London on 7th July 2005

Listening to the news, it took a few minutes before we learned that there had also been bombs near Liverpool Street and Edgware Road.

Then at 9.47 am we heard a single faint bang. It sounded as though someone had dropped something metal nearby, but in fact it was the bomb blast on the No. 34 bus at Tavistock Square, a few streets away.

Mobile Phone Network Shut Down

By 9.30 a.m it was impossible to get through to my family

main square in VarnaI felt very anxious and tried to call my children on their mobile phones to tell them I was all right, but I couldn't get through. I couldn't settle at work, and kept trying to ring them.

I thought the problem was simply that too many other people were doing the same thing and overloading the system.

Days later we discovered that the whole mobile network had actually been closed down for several hours as a safety measure, in order to prevent terrorists from using cell phones to detonate more bombs remotely.

I hadn't even thought about ringing my partner, because he was away in Bulgaria. But what I didn't realize is that Bulgaria received the news story at about the same time that we were getting the details in England, and of course he was freaking out when he couldn't contact me for several hours. As with 9/11, news spread exponentially, with everyone phoning each other to listen to the news and watch the television. Telephones were a vital part of the news process.

photograph: A view of one of the main squares in Varna, Bulgaria

I-C-E Campaign

Storing Personal Details on Mobile Phones in Case of Emergency

cell phone - photos by Larry 44Shortly after these frightening London bomb attacks, there was a campaign to encourage people to store their personal details on their mobile phones to help identify victims of accidents and disasters. A friend told me about the ICE - In Case of Emergency - number which could be entered onto your mobile phone.

The idea is simple:

To quote Wikipedia: "We all carry our mobile phones with names & numbers stored in its memory but nobody, other than ourselves, knows which of these numbers belong to our closest family or friends. If we were to be involved in an accident or were taken ill, the people attending us would have our mobile phone but wouldn't know who to call."

Mobile Phone photos by Larry 44

This gave rise to the "ICE" Campaign

In Case of Emergency, store important contacts under the name "ICE"

Mobile Phone - ICEIt is a method of contact during emergency situations.

You simply store the phone number of the people who should be contacted during emergency under the name "ICE" (for more than one contact name you would simply enter ICE1, ICE2 and ICE3 etc.).

The idea was thought up by an East Anglian Ambulance Service paramedic Bob Brotchie who realized when attending accidents that patients nearly always had their mobile phones but if they were unable to speak, no-one knew who to call. He therefore thought that it would be a good idea to have a uniform approach to searching inside a mobile phone for an emergency contact and that it would be easier for everyone if there was a nationally recognized name for this purpose.

This was taken up and ICE was born. It was so successful that it has spread to the USA, Australia, Canada and other countries.

Mobile phone manufacturers have been urged to add ICE headings to phones before they are sold.

Disaster Strikes Unexpectedly 5 Years Later!

Of its own volition (I swear!), my mobile phone tested the ICE facility

emergency aheadHow the Idea for this Lens came to mind:

Some five years after setting up ICE on my mobile phone, on 19th February 2010, my phone suddenly started to play up. I was trying to make a call but when I pressed the Contacts and Menu buttons, they were dead, and nothing happened. I tried pushing knobs and buttons indiscriminately, as you do, and the phone unexpectedly shut down of its own accord.

I started it up again, and it was working perfectly.

Five minutes later I received a panicky call from my son asking me what was the matter as he had received a message saying I needed help. My matter-of-fact voice convinced him that I knew nothing about this, and he cut me short telling me to ring my daughter quickly as she was already out in her car with my grandson, looking for me and had already told my partner and the police that I was in some kind of urgent trouble.

I rang her and she was clearly very upset, thinking I had collapsed or been knocked over, and said that she had received three texts and a phone message saying I needed help urgently.

I then called my partner, who had already spoken to the police, who he told me were on their way round.

Then, before I could even rush home, the police spoke to me twice on the phone to find out whether I was all right. I assured them I was, and explained about ICE, and they were very kind and nice about it.

But I still don't know what happened, and why my phone automatically and of its own accord sent out urgent messages to all my family. I think it may be set up so that if no other calls are permitted, I can just press a button several times and an automatic message will be touched off and go to all necessary people. But what and how, I know not.

And of course, if a real emergency does ever arise, I just hope they don't think I'm crying wolf.

Here are Some Links

My Websites and also links to Websites about Emergency Situations

This is my Website Glorious Confusion
Come and visit me - see if you like it

Glorious Confusion


It's a bit amateur as I built it myself without any prior knowledge of how to do it. I would welcome any comments on whether you like it, and whether it works for you. Please have a look.

It contains chit-chat, a blog, photographs, poetry, books, earrings, Beswick figurines, a phonograph, ephemera, art and bric-a-brac, some of these things are for sale, and others just for entertainment.

Try it!

Or maybe you might like my blog below:

Diana's Blog at Glorious Confusion




This blog contains items on politics, North London, Poetry, Mennonites, Biggles and a few other things
London Bombings on 7/7 - the Report by the BBC on the day of the bombings
Here is the detail unfolding as it happened
Kings Cross Bomb - my eyewitness account from the bombed carriage
Rachel describes her experience - she was on the train travelling to Kings Cross and experienced the bomb exploding. This account was written the following day. Whilst you are visiting her blog, have a look at some of her other articles, which are very interesting as she was part of the group asking for a full investigation and review of the procedures in place
Teenage widow 'likely Moscow metro bomber' - police (2.4.2010 - BBC News Item)
The 17-year-old widow of a North Caucasus militant is suspected of being one of the suicide bombers who attacked the Moscow metro on Monday. Police in southern Russia confirmed to the BBC that they had given Moscow colleagues information about Dzhennet Abdurakhmanova, from Dagestan. The morning rush-hour bombings killed 39 people and injured more than 70, most of whom are still in hospital.
'Jihad Jane' Friend, Jamie Paulin Ramirez, Faces US Terrorism Charges (2 April 2010 - BBC News)
A second US woman has been accused of conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists in the "Jihad Jane" case. Jamie Paulin Ramirez was arrested in Philadelphia after flying back from Ireland and surrendering to police. She is accused of travelling around Europe with Colleen LaRose, who called herself "Jihad Jane", "to participate in and in support of violent jihad".

They were allegedly involved in a plot to murder a Swedish cartoonist who drew the Prophet Muhammad with a dog's body.
A City Burns - Canberra Fire 2003
January 18th, 2003, was very hot and extremely windy. For days the residents of Canberra were watching the smoke in the Namadgi National Park as the fire crept closer to the city. Over 160 fires were set alight in the remote Brindabella ranges, to the west of the ACT, on the 8th January when lighting strikes occurred. Several fires resulted

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About The Writer, Diana Grant

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Do any of you know what could have happened to my cell phone from a technological point of view?

Have you got ICE on your cell phone? Do you think it's a good idea?
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I love to get your comments - please keep them coming

  • cmadden Mar 3, 2012 @ 12:21 am | delete
    When I first saw the title of this lens, I thought, "Why would I program Immigration and Customs Enforcement into my cell phone?" Then I remembered from which side of the Atlantic you hail. Catchy title :-> . Interesting (and a bit scary) lens.
  • asiliveandbreathe Feb 14, 2011 @ 3:06 pm | delete
    Yes, I've got ICE numbers on my mobile phone. I've promoted the scheme in a book I am publishing later this year, along with other schemes for information in emergency situations.
  • Gloriousconfusion Sep 13, 2010 @ 5:16 am | delete
    It's a great idea, but I have discovered a proviso - if your phone isn't locked, and you bump it 4 times in a certain way, it sends off all the urgent messages without your realizing, and you get the family panicking and the police calling you - and if that happens more than once, people think you are crying wolf (like burglar alarms which keep going off when there are no burglars)
  • lisadh Sep 12, 2010 @ 11:44 pm | delete
    I've never heard of ICE, but think it's a brilliant idea. I do have Home, Mom and Dad programmed into my phone, so someone could probably figure out those would be good numbers to dial, but it's a great idea to have a standard.

    And glad you made it through all those situations ok! :-)
  • Hairdresser007 May 9, 2010 @ 10:06 pm | delete
    yes, I have ICE programmed into my phone!
  • WildFacesGallery Feb 24, 2010 @ 9:48 am | delete
    good information about something that was unknown to me. Thanks for creating this lens.
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Gloriousconfusion

Hello everybody. I worked as a solicitor in Central London until two years ago when I retired. I narrowly missed being on the train to Kings Cross tha... more »

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