http://shankman.com/choosing-the-right-emergency-contacts/trackback/
By Peter Shankman
September 10th, 2009
As a skydiver, I'm asked to put down an emergency contact every time I
visit a new dropzone. Growing up, chances are, we choose our parents.
I've learned since that they're not the best for that "bad call." Not to
diss them in any way, but if the worst were ever to happen, I'd rather
they find out from someone they know, someone who cares about them, who
can take care of them and not someone they've never spoken to before in
their life. My emergency contact is either my assistant Meagan, or my
attorney, both of whom are friends with my parents.
This was written by my friend Eric, a skydiver with thousands and
thousands of jumps, for a website called Dropzone.com. While it's meant
for skydivers, it's a worthy read/forward, for anyone who has to fill
this information out - and quite frankly, that's all of us. (Think about
it - new job, running a race, even taking a flight.) Read it and pass it
along.
Choosing Emergency Contacts
One of the things that all most every Dropzone or Boogie waiver has
is a space to list an Emergency contact. Most jumpers just fill this
information in with the first relative or friends name that pops
into their head as they fill out the waiver, but jumpers should fill
this section out after carefully selecting a contact. Jumpers should
put as much thought into this decision as they do into what type of
jumpsuit they are going to buy or what their next boogie is going to be.
There are criteria that make people better emergency contacts then
others and jumpers should keep this in mind as they make their
selection. Potential emergency contacts should meet the following
criteria at a minimum:
1) Potential emergency contacts need to be aware of any medical
issues or conflicts that you might have. If someone is allergic
to something and forgets to put it on their waiver the emergency
contact might just be the last line of defense there is to
prevent the emergency responders from giving them a potentially
dangerous drug or drug combinations.
2) Emergency contacts should have phone numbers to your immediate
family members rapidly available so they may inform your loved
ones about any potential incidents that might have happened. Poor
choices for emergency contacts include people that have never met
you or your family before you visit the DZ. At a minimum your
emergency contact should have the phone number to contact the
person that you would want to be notified of your injury or death
first.
3) Another trait that makes a good emergency contact is choosing
someone that is not at the airport the same time you are. In the
case of something like a plane crash or canopy entanglement you
might be involved in the incident with potential emergency
contacts. By choosing someone that is not involved in skydiving
or at the airport at all you maximize the availability of
contacts that DZ personal might be able to reach in the case of
an emergency on the dropzone.
4) Contacts should be someone that will be able to initially handle
receiving potentially devastating news about you. Choosing
someone that is known to be extremely emotional over the phone
might be a poor choice as a contact if the Dropzone or medical
teams need to ask questions of the emergency contact. Choose
someone that will be able to calmly answer any potential
questions after being informed that you are injured or worse.
5) Having multiple methods of contacting emergency contacts makes
the task of reaching the emergency contact a lot easier for the
dropzone personal. Emergency contacts should have at least one
phone number and if possible multiple phones. List every phone
number in the order that they should be called. Listing mobile
numbers, home numbers and work numbers should all be done at a
minimum to insure the maximum possibility of reaching someone in
a true emergency.
Other things that should be used as criteria in potential emergency
contacts include knowing who might be on vacation and out of reach
at the time of certain boogies, knowing which contacts will be
available to rapidly travel to deal with incidents if they happen,
and in the case of international jumpers knowing the time difference
and how that is going to affect the ability to contact your
potential contact.
Using these criteria to choose an emergency contact will increase
the probability that the dropzone personal will be able to reach
and inform people of emergencies involving you, plus it will reduce
the anxiety factor on the dropzone staff side in contacting people
if they know they will not have to end up calling 10 people to reach
someone that has needed answers about you.
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