On ICE

Submitted by Mark Shields, a local early thirty-something gay about town and occasional rabble rouser, this post examines choosing In Case of Emergency (ICE) contacts in an alternative society.

I’ve just been hit by a bus. True to form, I was jaywalking, and now I’m being pealed unceremoniously off of the pavement with broken bones and oozing vital fluids, and plopped on a gurney. As I continue to imagine this scenario, the most awkward and dreaded part is when the benevolent paramedic leans over me and asks “who is your In Case of Emergency person?”

As an urban gay, single now for the past few years, it’s not immediately clear to me who should be in charge of my person when calamity has befallen me. Recently, at brunch with a couple of friends who are getting married in Ptown in a few weeks (which adds a dull irritation to the discussion) I was told that it is now common practice for emergency personnel to look in the phone of an unconscious person for an ICE (In Case of Emergency) acronym to see if there’s a number. I’m not entirely sure if this is true or an urban myth, but it has made my cell phone into something of a Telltale Heart, each ring or vibration reminding me that this is one particular loop that I have not closed.

Like so many in DC, I’m not from the area. I moved here six summers ago for a job, leaving my family and a series of college and other old friends and myriad wonderful ICE candidates scattered throughout the Midwest. I’m not wild about having someone hundreds of miles away being the primary contact in an emergency room situation. To further complicate matters, my parents have divorced in the last few years, which means that even if I wanted to list one of them as my ICE contact, there is now an issue of inter-family politics to consider should I pick one of them over the other as the first call. My decision could and pointedly would be used against me in between courses at holiday dinners and family events.

In my time here in DC, I’ve been fortunate enough to make many dear friends and move between a few wonderful, but distinct, urban tribes. This poses awkwardness, as there are very few friends within these circles who transcend the different friend groups and would be ready to mobilize different people in the case of an emergency. It’s possible that I’m over thinking this, but I would like to avoid having well-intentioned friends notifying one another that I’ve become road kill by posting notices to each other on my Facebook wall.

There’s also the simple practical question that comes with being a gay man in my early thirties with friends largely of the same demographic. Hate crimes have been on the rise in DC of late, several of which occurred within blocks of my home – primarily at night when my brethren tend to be in varying and often diminished states of sobriety.

If at all possible, I would like to spare my friends and I the indignity of a next-morning phone call that begins, “Hey, sorry I missed your emergency call last night. I was at the men in underwear drink free at the Green Lantern and my phone was in my pants at the clothes check,” or some other variation of that sentence too numerable and absurd to imagine.

To be clear, this is not meant to be a poor-me complaint about being single. I’m quite content with my life as it is right now, and am sure that one of these days my prince will come and my ICE concerns will melt away.

However, this whole line of questioning has raised a distinct vulnerability that reminds me of being in the second grade on Parents Day at school – only neither of my parents were there because they both had to work. I have no problem talking with close friends about any number of intimate topics, but asking one of them to step up as a proxy parent or caregiver when the worst has happened is decidedly uncomfortable.

All hesitations aside, I’ve decided that by the end of the week I want to pull the trigger on the issue, officially designate my ICE, and move on, but I am curious how others in similar standing approach the issue.

How do you pick your ICE people? Are there suggestions for identifying criteria for your ICE? How do you go about asking someone to be your ICE without having it feel like you’re in the seventh grade, pimply-faced and awkward, asking someone to go steady with you?