Message in a bottle

If you call or n ambulance and are conscious when it arrives then I’m sure you’re perfectly capable of telling the ambulance crew your medical details and who you would like them to contact. But what if you’re not conscious? What if there are no friends or family around to pass on this information? What if it was your neighbours who called the ambulance and they don’t know that much about you?
  
It's not essential the ambulance crew knows everything about you but some information may help in reaching a diagnosis, deciding upon a treatment or establishing what other risk factors there may be.
  
The Lions Club have for some time been promoting a system that can help achieve this, a system so simple that it has rapidly gained popularity – Message in a Bottle.
  
So what is the message? The message is your medical details – medical conditions, medications, allergies, next of kin and who your GP / health visitor is. You can also note down personal details (hair / eye colour, distinguishing marks, even a photo) just so the ambulance crew can recognise the person they’re dealing with is definitely you.
  
The template the Lions Club use even includes information on pets. Presumably the last thing the ambulance crew want is to suddenly find out the pet Rottweiler who had been sleeping peacefully upstairs has just woken and is now hungry.
  
And the bottle? The bottle is just somewhere to keep the message protected and a plastic bottle will normally keep it safe and dry. This is especially the case if the bottle is to be kept in the fridge?
  
Why on earth would you keep it in the fridge? Well first of all the kitchen is probably the most recognisable room in the house so the ambulance crew will be able to locate it quickly and the fridge is normally a fairly identifiable piece of equipment so finding it shouldn’t be a problem. 
  
The message in a bottle kit the Lions Club give out includes a sheet of paper with a template for writing down your medical details. It includes a sealable plastic tube that the medical form can be placed inside so that it’s protected. Finally it includes two stickers; one should be placed on the fridge door to aid identification, and the other should be placed on the inside of your front door so ambulance crew know to check your fridge.
  
For further information on the Message in a Bottle scheme, or to find out how you could get a bottle, then visit the Lions Club web site.
  
It’s such a simple system and it could make the ambulance crew’s job much easier. If their job is much easier, you will be in much safer hands.