Thinking about the Las Vegas massacre. Barely 10% of the victims were from NV, which is not all that surprising given the convention/vacation reputation of that town. It took LVMPD a couple of days to notify the next of kin of a few of the victims, & I bet that was helped by the national news nature of it & those family members calling in when they didn’t hear from their deceased relative.
Even if you didn’t go away with your single friend & just went out to dinner/movie/play/bowling/etc. & there was a fatal car accident or a one-off mugging that doesn’t make national news. What percentage of your single friends, including someone you might be dating could you assist the police by steering them towards a living relative when you look at their social media contacts?
Is the number lower for your friends who are divorced women who kept their married name after the divorce because their last name doesn’t match up with other relatives?
I’m a consultant; where I physically work isn’t who my employer is. If the PD were to contact where I work, HR wouldn’t know me but if you get to the right part of IT someone would know (of) me because of system access.
Nowadays, if I was close enough to someone that I went to Vegas with them (even if it was just to go to a big concert), I’d assume we’d be facebook friends. Many of the people that I just call FB Friends (as opposed to IRL friends), I can probably name at least one sibling or parent, just because they interact with them on FB.
If worse comes to worst, I could probably just write a message on their FB page (so their friends could see it) asking to have someone get a hold of me and go from there.
Having said all that, it’s probably a good idea to have one or two ICE numbers in your phone and set it up so they can be dialed or viewed without unlocking it.
I’d have zero idea how to contact any of the extended family of my IRL single friends. I’m not a social media user other than here, so have no insight on that front.
In addition to Joey P’s excellent ICE suggestion, my state, Florida, has a program run by their drivers’ license division. You can go online and enter one or more emergency contacts there keyed to your driver’s license. So if the authorities find you with your ID they can access that data and contact whoever you specified. Folks in other states / countries might want to check their relevant website for something similar. Seems like a pretty smart idea.
Whether single or not, that can be a real help in an emergency. I’m married, but I often bike to the beach with no phone, ID, or anything else. I have a metal GI-style dog-tag attached to my swim trunks that includes my wife’s contact info and my driver’s license number. If I get whacked by a car or half eaten by a shark that info might help. I also wear one while traveling, which I do a lot. It might improve my emergency medical care a bunch or if I’m past that point it’ll at least improve the notification process.
This is their original model, & the most obnoxiously obvious as to what it is. They now make some that will clasp onto an existing watch band. Along with other companies that make them look like a pendant with a design on one side, & a bottle opener incorporated, or the Medic Alert items that are designed to look like jewelry are all a bad idea, IMO.
I ran EMS for a lot of years, if you’re unconscious on the side of the road, we’re going to hurry up & treat you & get you to a hospital; we’re not going to take the time to inventory your jewelry; they’ll do that in the morgue, where they have more time.
I worry about this for myself and others. I have had very close married friends for years (both male and female) and I have still never met their spouse and they never met mine when I had one. I tend to place people in hard categories and not mix and match with different types of social access. I rarely even mention other people in my life and they don’t either. I could probably figure it out if something happened but that would just be general details and something anyone could find.
I worry about myself more than anything. I have no idea how anyone would piece anything together if something happened to me. The only people allowed in my house are my daughters and one neighbor that takes care of my chinchilla when I am away. My computer wipes itself every day and all my records are electronic. My daughters are still too young for me to explain how everything works and there is a lot to know. I also travel solo frequently for business and pleasure. If I got killed and someone took my wallet, I have no idea how anyone would figure it out.
This is a semi-related question that I have been meaning to ask. I work in a semi-secret facility with carefully controlled access (it isn’t as oppressive as it sounds). My coworkers only know what I tell them and vice versa. I know many of them quite well even socially but we don’t mix family and friends into it. The whole environment is fairly secretive and so are the people and I am that way naturally.
Is there a good way or even a paid service to help others figure out what to do if something happens to you? I am the executor of my mother’s estate if something happens to her and my stepfather but I only have the name of one lawyer in Texas that I can’t even recall off the top of my head. Likewise, I have several lawyers and CPA’s working for me but no one in the immediate family even knows who or where they are.
I could contact parent, siblings and in-laws for most of my friends, married and single. It helps that I’ve known most of them for 25+ years, and we’ve all been together through marriages, divorces, children beings born, and family deaths.
I think I only have two single friends. One of them, I know her parents as well as I know her, and could certainly e-mail them. I’d have to dig around a bit for their phone number, but I could probably get that, too.
The other one, I know that his parents are still alive, and that he’s got a bunch of siblings, and I know what state his parents live in, but that’s about it. I don’t know any of their first names, and his last name is too common to be of any use.
My last name, meanwhile, is uncommon enough that anyone who knows me would be able to find my mother with even a minimum of effort, even if they didn’t already know her. Other than her, though, my only other relatives close enough to be useful with my last name are clear across the country.
I have one single friend who isn’t on Facebook. If anything ever happened to her while we were together, I’d have to contact her employer.
For myself, my best friends know they could contact my father and brother via Facebook.
My father and brother know very little about my life, so I’ve created an “In Case I Die” document that I’ve both emailed them and posted to a Google Drive folder that only the three of us have access to. It contains instructions on what to do with my dog, who to contact at my work, and who else to notify (my landlord, certain friends, etc.). It also contains notes about all of my accounts and how to access my laptop for more information, where I keep my safe, which pieces of my jewelry are worth anything, how to access the spare key to my house, etc. I update it periodically.
I can’t think of any friends that is not a friend-of-a-friend. So I’d start with our mutual friends and surely I’d work to their parents. They would do the same for me.
Most of my friends are married or I know their parents, but for the one friend that doesn’t apply to, we have enough mutual friends IRL and on Facebook that I think I’d figure it out. I’d check her phone first.
I have the Medical ID button set up on my phone’s emergency screen for this reason, with contact numbers for my parents. Failing that, my friends all know where I work and would be able to contact my employer. My employer makes us fill out a new sheet every year with emergency contacts and any allergies or other important info that they keep in an easily accessible binder in case anyone ends up needing 911 and is unable to speak for themselves.
I have absolutely no idea how to contact a next of kin for almost all of my friends. For most of them all I know is their cell phone and LINE (a social media app used in Asia). I don’t know where most of them live or the contact info of their SO for those in a relationship. Since no one has a landline anymore, that is out. Hell, I don’t even know the last names of most of my friends.
Some are better at Facebook so I suppose that I could contact mutual friends and see if anyone knows their Facebook contact. There have been Dopers who have passed away and someone who was Facebook friends have found out details.
I’ve wondered if I should leave instructions with my wife on how to post a message if anything were to happen.
My phone is not blocked by any security, because there’s nothing n it worth a damn to anybody, so figuring out my next of kin ought to be easy. Assuming the phone is nearby when the incident occurs.
Also my name is unique enough, my family really are a mere Google search away.
I don’t necessarily know how to contact the children of siblings of my friends, but I know who does and does not have adult children, living parents, and siblings, and of course, spouses. I do not have contact for any of those people, not even necessarily spouses, except for a couple of people who have landlines.
However, I do assume that people have these numbers in their phones. I would be able to tell the police, for example, “She has an adult son she calls ‘Nate’ in Wisconsin; I don’t know what Nate is short for, and a sister named Sharon who lives in Illinois. She has other siblings, but I don’t recall their names, and two other children, but they are minors. Her father is not living, and her mother has Alzheimer’s. He ex-husband is named Michael, and is local. They are friendly, and he would probably help you with contacting a next-of-kin.” That is probably all the police would need. They would find a number in her phone in Wisconsin for Nate, or Nathaniel, or Jonathan, or something, and call him. If he didn’t answer, they’d find a number for Sharon in Illinois.
I could give that sort of information about pretty much everyone of my friends. I have a few friends who are relatively new, but I do at least know where they work, and everyone has to put an emergency contact on file at their work.
Which come to think of it, may have been what the police did in a few cases-- contacted people’s work, which took a while because it was the weekend. Anyway, if I couldn’t name a person, I could at least point the police toward their work.
I have a document in the top drawer of my office desk with names and phone numbers for my next of kin, and about six others to cover my circles of friends. It also details my wishes for my funeral.
I have a meat tag on my left ribcage near my underarm, and a matching one on my right ankle, it has the same info as on my dogtags. Using any of the tags you get my name, blood type, social security number and the fact I am diabetic and have hypertension. I also have a medicalert bracelet with USB storage with medical records.
