I've always been puzzled by something. When you're in a car wreck, how do they notify your next of kin? I have really put some thought into this over the years but I can't figure it out. If I had a wreck, they'd run my tag and get my name, number, and address. But what if nobody was home? Do they go to your cell phone next? "Mom" is easy, but how do they know what my husband's name is? They can't know where he works, can they? Do they knock on neighbors' doors for information?
I guess that's why it seems to take a while sometimes, like when that van with 11 or 12 kids in it crashed in New Orleans - how do you know who all the kids are? That seemed to take 24 hours from what I remember. Can you imagine being a little kid in the hospital and they don't know who your parents are?
That reminded me of when I came home one afternoon a few years ago and cars were stopped because a toddler was sitting in the road with his dog. Everybody's just sitting there in their cars! I jumped out and picked him up out of the street and took him back to my car till the cars went by. He couldn't tell me where he lived, and there was not a parent in sight, so I ran through the scenarios of calling 911 versus driving him past houses to see if one was his. (That one screamed "kidnapping" in my head.) Meanwhile, we're sitting with the dog in my car and finally an older woman runs up - his grandmother. She swears that damned dog is going to get him killed, because the dog runs off and the kid follows (who's watching the kid? Oh wait, this has happened before - does DHR know about this?), but thanks for finding him, bu-bye!
So we've made sure the boys know their address and phone number. Lucas pulled out a little folded piece of paper with my cell phone number on it tonight and said, "Look Mom, I've got your address." Close enough.
1 comment:
Wow, you have given that a lot of thought. I've actually wondered that stuff before though....need to make sure I have ICE info on my cell phone I guess.
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