dealing with emergencies.

[kbasa]

Originally Posted by pilot

How about a revue of Medjet? One of the members used them recently with good results. He had a broken tib/fib and was flown home.

He got the ride home because he was hospitalized and needed further treatment. A broken foot without being hospitalized won't get you the flight home. I found that out last trip to C.A. Oh, well, I was in a pretty good spot to hang out for a couple weeks.

BMW MOA members get a discount on Medjet.

Thank you for your attention, we now return to your regularly scheduled thread.

[Hauptmann906]

While it is not as slick as an SD chip around your neck, my military "dog tags" do the job. Every soldier is issued a pair, and if you have allergies or some special health concern, you get a third red tag. I wear mine on every bike trip. They contain your full name, SSN, blood group, and religion (just in case things don't go well). The second tag has full name, SSN and (in my case) penicillin allergy and contact lenses. They are stainless steel and worn on a stainless bead chain around the neck. You don't have to join the military to get them either. They can be orded from catalogs like "Ranger Joes" and "U.S. Cavalry" with whatever info you want printed on them. It is decidedly low-tech, but has worked for the military for many years.

http://www.rangerjoes.com/dog-tags-a...sue-p-210.html

[Daaayo]

Awesome thread!
Great Ideas!
Thank you all so much!

[Conrad]

I am very appreciative of this information. A friend of mine from Germany and I are planning a ride to Alaksa (from Oklahoma) in the summer of '08. All suggestions for preparation are sincerely appreciated.

[astro]

Originally Posted by DRTBYK

This is what I carry on my person (around my neck) when I travel. This is not all I carry in the way of ICE info but this is there in case nothing else is readily available.

My SDCard carries many personal doc's in JPG form (Passport,Drivers License,etc...)


The outside of the SDCard case.


This only took me 30 min. to put together.

Cheers,

How do you carry it around your neck? Travel pouch??

[DRTBYK]

Sorry, it was hard to see the small holes drilled to allow my Dog Tag chain to pass through.

[Stranded in Iowa]

Sorry to be a drag........ but my best friend (Brad) and I were on vacation together last August on our bikes in Montana. We had to split up to go in different directions to go to our homes. About three hours after we split up, my friend Brad was involved in a fatal accident with a semi. The officials knew his name (ID in wallet, etc, etc) but no idea who to call for next of kin. He just moved, new job and such also. His fiance had to start making calls I was the first. Where`s Brad? Hell I don`t know, he should be home by now? Then she called the Montana State Troopers and found out the hard way where he was a few days later after the accident.
Something you don`t think about, or least I never have. Proper ID, next of kin info, medical stuff is important info to have on you.

[tigrebleau]

RiderWearhouse offered a small, laminated holder for vital info on the tag inside. There is a h-d loop that can hang on a neck-chain or loop through something else. A while ago they offered them free with any order. I carry mine on every solo off-road excursion. I don't think they offer them any more; but they do have some security-wallets, such as http://www.aerostich.com/product.php...cat=428&page=2
However, I looked at the one I have and saw it was supplied by cyclegadgets.com and they still offer them at: http://cyclegadgets.com/Products/product.asp?Item=MICS. The MICS stands for Medical Info Carrier System. They also used to offer them free to anyone, but got overwhelmed by non-motorcyclist requests, so now they only offer them for free with any order (their on-line catalog has some worth-having stuff); otherwise they are a whole $1.19 each. The new ones look to be better-designed than my old one, and since some of my information has changed, I'll order a couple new ones. As I was browsing their site for Xmas stuff, I found a neat book for $20: http://cyclegadgets.com/Products/pro...?Item=BOOK-BSG that looks useful to those wanting a reference source of riding-related medical advice. I still have some hopes of doing Baja or Moab before I get too old and this thread has started me thinking about what I should be accumulating in preparation.

[Roadracer_Al]

I've often considered having some critical care info, such as blood type, tatooed on myself. I figure that of all things in life -- addresses, phone numbers, wives -- your blood type and med allergies aren't going to change.

Sort of like a can't lose it, can't scratch your paint with it, safe around rotating machery MedAlert bracelet.

[Maddaddy]

great ideas by all!

now to just combine them.

Dog tags are the way to go. SHOULD you become a Flaming Moe, The dog tags won't burn up with you. They'll still be around your kentucky fried neck when the fire department gets around to putting your ass out.

Now take that cheapo SD card with all of your scanned documents and sandwich it between your tags and tape it all up. Or use the plastic holder like DRTBYK showed. I've searched high and low for a fire proof SD card, but couldn't find one.


best of both worlds.

[Sundance]

I've always meant to do something like this, I like the SD card idea. Thanks for the kick in the arse to get something done. As a medic, I can say most of us will find your dog tags, or bracelet; the tatoo idea won't work unless there's a really interesting tatoo with it.

[Tail Gunner]

In Case of Emergency, or ICE, is a program that enables first responders, such as paramedics, firefighters, and police officers, to identify victims and contact their next of kin to obtain important medical information. The program was conceived in the mid-2000s and promoted by British paramedic Bob Brotchie in May 2005.^[1] It encourages people to enter emergency contacts in their cell phone address book under the name "ICE". Alternately, a person can list multiple emergency contacts as "ICE1", "ICE2", etc. The popularity of the program has spread across Europe, and has started to grow into North America.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_case_of_emergency

Andrew

[Lightemup]

With regards to the SDcard, think about carrying a USB memory key instead.

I think more computers in the world today have USB ports, than SD card slots.

I travel with all my personal info, scans etc on a USB key around my neck, and have a backup of all the files on my Laptop and on a seperate USB key in my document folder where my passport, licenses, credit cards etc are.
I have a MS notepad document on it as the first file besides a folder in the root dir.
Its named "My Last Will" (Selfexplanatory)
In the Dir named "Personal Files" I have all the scans of all my personal documents and contact information on my NOK.
I will now make another one that lies more accessible, thanks for the pointers.

[Big Single]

The following is just my humble opinion:

In most third world places, any sort of electronic storage device will most likely be worthless. A metal dog tag with a telephone number or two is the only way to fly. The telephone numbers should obviously contain your country code.

In the first world, many EMS and police agencies are going to keyed electronic storage devices. (I believe that's the right term.) In other words, you can't just plug any storage device into their computers. They're protecting their systems from those who would hack or attempt to spread viruses.

Now, dog tags and some sort of electronic storage device wouldn't be such a bad idea.

[ithiltaen]

Originally Posted by Sundance

I've always meant to do something like this, I like the SD card idea. Thanks for the kick in the arse to get something done. As a medic, I can say most of us will find your dog tags, or bracelet; the tatoo idea won't work unless there's a really interesting tatoo with it.

German SS troops had their blood type tattooed on their left arm, as they thought it was quite useful (and it was, at least until the Russians found out and started killing everybody with such a tattoo) I have some friends on the military and a couple of them have this tattoo as well: it is a very simple tattoo, just saying "0-" or whatever, but it's visible enough to be seen if you are on the surgery table.

I've got a question myself: what do you do if you have a mechanical problem you don't know how to fix (or just can't), and there's nobody to help you? As you can guess, I'm not exactly a master engineer...

And yeah, I mean an answer beyond "you walk"