Here’s a safety tip …
ICE your priest!
by Peter Gillies
In many police departments in North America and the United Kingdom, including the Rothesay Regional Police Force, it is now the practice of traffic officers investigating accidents and other incidents to check cell phone directories of victims under the letter "I" for ICE. ICE stands for In Case of Emergency. In the phone book of your cell phone you can preface the name of your next of kin and your parish priest with the letters ICE. In some places paramedics also routinely check cell phones for ICE numbers.
I list my home number in my cell phone as “ICE 1 - wife.” That way an officer knows, as he or she scrolls through the letter I listings, who to call and at what number. I have one of my closest friends, also a priest, listed as “ICE 2 - Rev. Allen Tapley.” He also happens to be a Police Chaplain with the RCMP - Southern District. My daughter lists me as her ICE number.
If you don’t have a cell phone, put one of your rector’s business cards in your wallet behind your driver’s license and write on it in red ink “Please call in case of emergency.” I recently attached a copy of my card with all my phone numbers on it to a Sunday bulletin so everybody could have one.
Peter Gillies is rector of the Parish of Hammond River and a chaplain to the Rothesay Regional Police Force
Diocesan Communications
01 May 2007
