ICE Your Cell Phone for Your Life and Your Horse's

Some good advice taken from the USEF e-news:

By Sharon Baker

Protect yourself and your horse and ICE your cell phone, right now. ICE stands for In Case of Emergency. ICE is an international designation that Emergency Medical Technicians and Emergency Responders will look for on your personal cell phone if you are injured and unable to speak, or respond to questions, as a result of any type of accident or debilitating illness.

Take a few minutes to make the entries: ICE in your cell phone for yourself, and ICE HORSE for your horses. In the first entry, after entering the word: ICE, list the person’s name and phone number whom you would have emergency care takers call and notify in case you are found injured or unconscious. Do the same with the name and phone number of your veterinarian or the person you would want contacted to make decisions about your horses.

EquiMedic USA reminds all horse owners that being prepared is the best method of accident prevention, much of that having to do with possessing the right mentality and mind set. When you have taken the time to be prepared, you have the inevitable and worse case scenario in your mind, and you are more likely to stay in the preventive mode. Prevention and preparedness is your best insurance against having accidents.

Emergency care givers have been trained to search in the cell phones of accident victims for the entry ICE, to find the appropriate family, friends or personal medical advisors to notify and gather important medical information. ICE entered in your cell phone with your own personal entries, could easily save your life. The ability to notify and gather the necessary medical information can make the difference in time and being able to administer necessary medical attention, and with the necessary permission to do so. If you are in an accident while traveling with your horses, the situation compounds dramatically. You might be injured, and your horses might be just fine, but will need attention while you are cared for. The worst possible scenario might find you and your horses both needing emergency care. If you need to have more than one entry in your cell phone for emergency contacts, just add numerical numbers to each necessary ICE entry. The simple entries, ICE and ICE HORSE, will appear first. Successive entries such as ICE 2, ICE 3, or ICE HORSE 2, ICE HORSE 3, etc., will show up in that order after the primary entry, and more than one contact can be called on your behalf. Your primary contact might not be available by phone, or you might want to have more than one phone number entry for that same person, or several people, so multiple entries are a great idea.

If you travel the nation’s roads at all with your horses in tow, either near home or far away, also consider having additional official paperwork with you. Beyond having the obvious legal documents like health certificates and Coggins papers, consider also carrying a Power of Attorney with those necessary papers. This document usually needs to be notarized, and when properly filled out, gives another party or person of your choice the legal ability to make decisions for and about your horses. This is essential if you are injured or sick and unable to make these decisions. Additional paperwork which is also wise to carry while traveling is in-depth information about each horse that you haul, including names, ages, feeding information, known allergies, medical background, and veterinarian and insurance contact information. Useful Power of Attorney and Emergency information forms can be obtained from U.S. Rider Motor Plan and EquiMedic USA .