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Hello again readers! Dear Berry is here once again with a mailbag full of BlackBerry questions and woes. Today's question comes from Pervez who asks:

How do you save ICE (In Case of Emergency) numbers on Z10? / BS10?

Hi Pervez,

Being able to reach specific contacts in an emergency situation is always important. For many individuals their device becomes a potentially lifesaving tool. For those who may not be aware ICE stands for In Case of Emergency. It allows friends, family, and even emergency personnel to quickly find contact information. There are several ways with which to accomplish this on BlackBerry and each person is different.

Contacts Application

The easiest method and the one that I use, is adding contacts with ICE preceding their name. For example, you can ICE1 – Mom, ICE2 – Dad, inputting their numbers in the entry. While it creates duplicate contacts, rather than modifying the existing ones, it does allow EMT's or other professionals to quickly navigate your emergency numbers.

In addition, you may create entries to include medical details, including allergies, medications you are using and additional relatives, friends, and physicians. Again you would precede the entry with the "ICE" tag so as navigate directly to them. Using the steps outlined above you could update your lock message to say where to find these contacts.

Keep in mind that your phone cannot be locked or password protected for these professionals to access your address book.

Lock Screen Message

If you have security enabled on your device you can add two emergency contacts to your lock screen as show in the image above. The reason I say this is when you lock or protect your device with a password, this hinders emergency personnel including police officers from accessing your contact list. While locked, you can make an emergency phone call.

  • Swipe down from the top bezel to bring the homescreen menu and select settings
  • Tap Security and Privacy > Lock Screen
  • Scroll down to the Lock Screen Message
  • In the Line 1 and Line 2 fields, you have room to enter in at least two contacts and their telephone numbers.

Setup a background image with your details

As mentioned before, people lock their device for security and privacy reasons. However, this poses a downside. While it prevents strangers from accessing your data when lost or stolen, there is no way to view your ICE information. While we discussed adding a lock screen message, another quick fix is by changing your background or lock screen image (this can be done with the help of a third-party wallpaper changing application).

This quick and simple solution will allow you to add emergency information including your name, medical condition, contacts, etc. to your screen. Just be sure to check how it looks first so that there is nothing blocking the information from being read when creating your own wallpaper.

Applications

Taking precautions using the above methods are some of the ways in which you can alert the proper parties in an emergency. Installing an application is another method with which to store ICE contacts and other important life-saving information.

These are just a couple of applications available that offer a variety of features to aid first responders in obtaining important medical and contact information. The red cross is universal and easy to identify on your homescreen.

  • MED - ICE for BlackBerry 10{.nofollow}
  • HelpME!{.nofollow}

These are just a few methods I recommend to create and save ICE numbers on your BlackBerry.

Anyone else have a method they use for emergency contact information? Feel free to chime in by leaving yours in the comments.

Have a question about BlackBerry etiquette? Need advice on how to cope with your BlackBerry addiction? Dear Berry has you covered and there's no question too big or problem too small. Submit any of your BlackBerry woes by email to [email protected] or on Twitter @DearBerryCB.

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