Sarah Everard’s murder has pushed women’s safety in the spotlight.
The 33-year-old marketing executive in London initially disappeared on March 3 while walking home from a friend’s house. Following extensive searches, her remains were found a week later and a police officer was arrested suspicion of murder.
While officers have been working non-stop to establish what led to the tragedy, social media is overflowing with women sharing their stories of how to feel safe and protected.
One of these safety tips is the emergency SOS feature that’s available for all iPhone users. (Don’t worry, there’s a version of this for Android users as well.)
According to Health.com, the feature lets you swiftly call all of your emergency contacts at the same time and alert them to an issue while also sharing your location.
Set Up Emergency Contacts
First off, you have to make sure to have emergency contacts set up under the Health app on your phone. Tap your profile picture and click Medical ID. From there, scroll to the emergency contacts section, add a contact, your relationship to the person, and click save.
Enable Emergency SOS on iPhone 8 and later
On iPhone 8 and later models, you have to press and hold the side button along with one of the volume buttons simultaneously to enable the SOS call function.
Once you do that, the Emergency SOS slider appears. If you want to make a call, drag the slider to ring emergency services.
If you continue holding it down the side button and volume button rather than dragging the slider, a countdown will begin and a loud siren alarm will sound.
If you’re still holding the button when the countdown expires, your iPhone will automatically contact emergency services.
Any call made with SOS will call the local emergency number automatically. Some countries require you to choose the service you’re requesting like police, fire, or ambulance.
You can check out the full instructions from Apple Support here.
Enable Emergency SOS iPhone 7 or later
On earlier iPhones, you must rapidly press the side or top button five times to bring up the Emergency SOS slider and drag it to make a call.
Once the call is finished, your emergency contacts will automatically get a text message with your current location. Even if Location Services are turned off, the system will override that temporarily. Anytime your location changes, your contacts will be sent updates.
In order for this to work, you must set up emergency contacts in advance. To set this up, you can open the Health app, tap your profile picture and click Medical ID. From there scroll to the emergency contacts section, add a contact, your relationship to the person, and click save.
Enable Emergency SOS on Android phones
All phones come equipped with emergency features including Androids. Search for emergency settings in your general settings or under “advance features.” This will vary depending on make and model.
Click “send SOS messages” and accept all terms. From there, create emergency contacts. You can even detail if you want to send out photos and audio clips in emergency clips.
In case of an emergency, press the side key or power key several times in a row to send an SOS message to emergency contacts. You can also set how many times to press the button before an alert is sent in your settings.
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