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Welcome to the 'How to send an SMS to an emergency contact on an iPhone' video course. In this video, you'll learn how you set up your phone to automatically send a text message with your location to an emergency contact. This works with your phone's Emergency SOS feature and can make all the difference if you're in trouble or unable to speak.
Emergency SOS lets you call 000 without unlocking your phone or opening apps. It can save time when help is needed urgently. And you can learn more in the 'How to call emergency services from your iPhone's lock screen' course. To start, you need to create an emergency contact. You can do this from the Phone app using your stored contacts, but for this demonstration, we'll open the Health app. Tap on it.
The Health app can track your health data and stores your Medical ID, which includes your emergency contacts. To access your Medical ID, find your Profile icon in the top right corner. If you can't see the Profile icon, make sure the Summary icon at the bottom left is selected. Now, tap on the icon.
At the top of the next screen, tap Medical ID. Here, you can add personal information, medical details, and notes that might help in an emergency. At the top of the screen, you can tap the switches next to Show When Locked and Share During an Emergency Call, to make the information available to a first responder and emergency services. For now though, let's scroll to Emergency Contacts. When you give permission to share your Medical ID during an emergency call, your information is encrypted and cannot be read by Apple.
When you find Emergency Contacts, tap Add. Then tap Add Emergency Contact to open your Contacts list. Now, choose a contact. They should have a mobile phone number, not a landline, to be able to receive an emergency text message. A panel will appear and you can select their relationship to you. The panel will close and you can add another emergency contact if you like. To delete an emergency contact, tap the red dot on the left of their name, then tap Delete.
When you're happy with your list, tap Done to save your changes. Now, let's check that Emergency SOS is set up. Swipe up to go to the Home page, then tap the Settings app. From the menu, tap Emergency SOS. Check that the switch next to Call with Hold and Release is on. This means you can press and hold the Side button and either Volume button, then release them to start a call to emergency services.
You can also turn on Call with 5 Button Presses, which lets you press the Side button five times in a row to start the emergency call. Tap it. Scroll down, and the name and number of your emergency contacts will display. Now, if you ever need to make a call to emergency services, your iPhone will automatically send a text message to your emergency contact with your location, and will continue sending updates for up to 24 hours if your location changes.