Contents: Emergency phone calls

How to make an emergency call?
PAYG mobile phone
Myth busts
Text 999 – emergencySMS

How to make an emergency call?

If you’re out in the hills well away from roads and can make a phone call, then you should dial 999 or 112 and ask for the Police and Mountain Rescue. You’ll need to be able to describe where you are as accurately as possible and explain what the problem is.

Include your OS grid reference. Describe your location too, ideally by naming the spot. It will help confirm the grid reference and give the emergency services confidence that you are where you say you are. If the grid reference gets recorded wrongly then that location description will be particularly useful.
eg NY 28472 07861, Jack’s Rake, Pavey Ark, Great Langdale, Lake District.

Here in the UK, mountain rescue teams probably prefer to get an OS grid reference than lat/long coordinates, or a What3Words address, or anything else. I asked the Team Leader of the Keswick Mountain Rescue Team if they can deal effectively with the different location systems.

“We can in theory use all of the common methods; Grid Reference (6/8/10 digit are all fine), Lat/Long (eg OS Locate app) and W3W. We have found that errors seem to come in with all of them – sometimes it may be a technical error and others might be user error, but the quickest for us to interpret are Grid References and then W3W, ideally reinforced with a name/description of the location.”

Team Leader. Keswick Mountain Rescue Team

Any rescuer with an OS map can see where the grid reference is straight away. In a suitable nav app, positioning a waypoint with that grid reference will pinpoint the spot electronically.

PAYG mobile phone

A mobile phone can be very useful in an emergency and many people in trouble instigate their own rescue. One of the concerns I’ve seen shared about using a smartphone for navigation is that you risk losing the only communications device you have. Well, that’s true. If you’re not careful you could break it or run the battery flat.

If you’re concerned about losing the use of your smartphone, then consider buying an old-style mobile phone with a traditional PAYG sim card for emergencies only.

Phones like the Nokia 105 cost about £20, the 105 weighs just 73gm(2.5oz) and offers over 14 hours of talk time. If you don’t use the phone, the SIM will last virtually forever. You might have to make a couple of calls a year to keep the SIM ‘alive’. If you do need it and can connect to the network the phone is registered with, then the emergency services can phone you back if they need to.

Then you can navigate to 0% battery on your smartphone before transferring to your map and compass or a second GPS device.

Myth busts

Mobile phones behave differently when calling emergency numbers like 999 and this seems to have produced a few myths. Here are two slightly dangerous ones…

Myth 1: You can make an emergency call from anywhere.

This is not true. If a phone cannot pick up a phone signal of any sort then you cannot even make a 999 phone call. A phone must be able to communicate with a phone mast somewhere or calls aren’t possible. Cellphone signals are a ‘line of sight’ technology. The phone works best if it has an unobstructed view of the cellphone mast. Any obstructions will degrade performance and a hill can block a signal completely.

Unusually, a 999 call will connect to any network, even those that you’re not subscribed to. I guess a misunderstanding of that fact accounts for the myth. If you’re subscribed to O2 and your phone can only find a Vodafone signal then for 999 calls it will connect to Vodafone’s network for free.

The emergency services won’t be able to phone you back if your O2 SIM card connects to the Vodafone network. They will only be able to ring you if you’re connected to the O2 network that you’re subscribed to. SIM cards are available that get round this problem and allow a phone to use multiple mobile networks for normal calls. eg AnywhereSim.com

However, there are plenty of places in the wilder areas of Britain where there is no cellphone signal provided by any company. You will not be able to make an emergency call in these areas.

Myth 2: You can make an emergency call without a SIM card.

This is not true. A smartphone might display ‘emergency calls only’ when the SIM is removed but in the UK, no smartphone can make a call away from the internet without an active SIM card. That includes 999 calls.

You cannot rely on your phone to call for help everywhere.

Text 999 – emergencySMS

Website: emergencySMS.net

If you’re in a poor signal area where a phone call would be impossible, it might still be possible to send a text to 999. Sending a text may only need a weak phone signal for a couple of seconds. There is a purpose-built service called ‘emergencySMS’. Use this in circumstances where you would normally call 999 but can’t get a good enough signal to hold a conversation.

You must register your mobile phone first. Do that now. It’s very simple. Text ‘Register’ to 999. That’s it. You should get replies about the service and a text checking that you do want your phone registered. Once you’ve sent your confirmation, ‘Yes’, you should be good to go.

You can check that your phone is registered at any time by texting ‘Register’ to 999 again. You’ll get an automated replay if your phone is already registered.
**999 Automated Reply** Your telephone number is already registered with the emergencySMS Service.

EmergencySMS recommend you include the following information in any emergency text.

• Which service? Ambulance, Coastguard, Fire Rescue, or Police (and mountain rescue)
• What? Briefly describe the problem.
• Where? An OS grid reference is ideal. Use the OS Locate phone app or similar. What3Words should work well too. Include a good description of where you are too.

A benefit of using text is that the grid reference shouldn’t get corrupted by someone mishearing you. The emergency services will reply. So if you get a signal for long enough you’ll know your text has been received and you can have a text conversation.

The service was designed with deaf, hard of hearing and speech-impaired people in mind, but anyone can use it freely.