Say you're traveling and are involved in a serious accident. If you're incapacitated, how will first responders know who to contact? How will they know what to do with your horses or other animals?

A new initiative has been receiving a lot of publicity recently --­ ICE, which stands for In Case of Emergency. This very simple program has been designed to aid emergency responders in identifying victims whose identity is unknown and in determining who needs to be notified.

Implementing ICE is easy. Program your emergency contact information into your cellular phone and designate it with the acronym ICE. For example, if your brother John is the person you want to have alerted in the event of an emergency, insert the letters "ICE" before his name in your phone's address book, creating an entry such as "ICE ­ John."

It is also important to make it easy for first responders to know who to contact for information regarding your pets that may be traveling with you.  Program an entry called "ICE ­ Cat" or "ICE - Horses" with the contact information of someone with the authority to make decisions about the care of your animals if you are incapacitated.

The idea for ICE was conceived by Bob Brotchie, a clinical team leader for the East Anglican Ambulance Service, after years of trying to reach relatives of people he was treating. With ICE, paramedics or police can swiftly find the number or numbers and reach relatives or friends who could help identify deceased victims and treat injured ones, by providing vital personal information, including details of any medical conditions.

GEFCU strongly encourages the public to participate in the ICE initiative, given the devastating example we have seen with Hurricane Katrina.

"This is a simple way to ensure that emergency, ambulance and hospital staff can quickly find out who your next of kin are and be able to contact them," said Mark Cole, managing member of USRider. "In addition, those people could provide pertinent information about your horses in the event of an emergency."