J
Someone to contact in anemergency
by Patti Babcock
The car screeches to a halt. Too late. The child riding his
bike has been hit. A witness dials 9 l 1 on her car phone. Help
is on the way. Emergency per-
sonnel arrive rapidly, and the
child is rushed to the nearest
emergency room.
None of the witnesses
know the child. No one in the
assembled crowd recognizes
the child or his bike. There is
no identification on the child.
The bike is not registered.
Sheriff' s personnel canvas the
neighborhood to try to identify
the child.
Meanwhile, at the emer-
gency room medical staff must
determine if the child's inju-
ries are life threatening. If not,
they need parental permission
to treat him. The child cannot
give them any intbrmation.
An unlikely scenario? No.
Emergencies invoiving chil-
dren, seniors, people who live
alone or even a couple on holi-
day are often complicated by
lack of information. Even if
the person has identification,
finding family members or others who need to be notified can
be a time consuming task. Many problems can arise in the
interim.
Most of us can think of one or more times in our own lives
when we wish a loved one had been available in an emergency
or when we wish we had been contacted sooner to help a
family member or friend. Think about it. How long would it
take to contact your family if you were involved in an
accident. How long would it take to find you or another
responsible relative if your child was hurt? If you have to
think about it, the answer is, "too long."
Melanie Briscoe, a Pahrumpian for over 20 years, thought
about it. She was in the hospital recovery room following an
appendectomy. Her husband was with her. A nurse called him
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to the phone. He returned
from the call to say he had to
return to Pahrump immedi-
ately. Their.son had been in-
jured in a car roll over acci-
dent. His injuries were not
life threatening. The grand-
mother, providing care dur-
ing the parents' absence,
could not sign for the boy's
treatment. Treatment was
delayed for the nearly two
hours it took to notify the
parent and have him drive
from Las Vegas to Pahrump.
When Briscoe attended
a Family Identification Ser-
vice seminar in Las Vegas
where solutions to child pro-
tection, notification, medical
consent and other family se-
curity and privacy problems
were addressed, she knew this
was a service needed in
Pahrump.
Briscoe's husband
makes the daily commute to
Las Vegas to work. She is the
mother of two teenage sons
.and a married daughter who
j"4ives in Las Vegas where she
attends UNLV. Her mother,
a senior, lives locally. Her
family is near and a lot of
people know them, but
Briscoe is aware this isn't
enough in an emergency.
Family IdentificatLon
Service made so much sense
to her, Briscoe resigned her
position of nearly five years
with the Nye County School
District to become an "Inde-
pendent Consultant."
Privacy is assured as all
the identification tags, cards,
labels and stickers have a fam-
ily identification number and
THERE FOR YOU-Melanie Briscoe represents a
service that gives children the comfort of knowing
their parents frill be there when needed.
an 800 emergency contact telephone number. Names, ad-
dresses and telephone are protected and all information
furnished to the service is con-
fidential.
This is how it works. If the
family of the child on the bike
belonged to FIS, a garment la-
bel would have been found on
his clothing and a property tag
would have been affixed to his
bike. His family I.D. number
would have been on both tags
with the 800 phone number.
Emergency personnel would
have called the 24-hour 800
number. An operator, at the
San Diego communications
center, would enter the I.D.
number in her computer which
would then generate the infor-
mation furnished by the boy's
parents. The operator would
take the information and the
caller's number, contact the
parent's and give them the in-
formation. They or whoever
they had designated to act if
they were unavailable would
contact the callers. In the event
medical consent was required, FIS could fax a copy of the
consent document on file so treatment couid begin immedi-
ately. Continued on page 24
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