Bear with me on this one …. particularly if you’re a Samsung Galaxy 9 or 9+ user.
Call-out today. Did the usual stuff in a usual place. When it came to getting the cas to inform a relative that an NHS big white taxi was on the way 🚑 the cas had phone with them but didn’t know the access code but had it written down and it was ‘in the cup holder space in the car’.
Their car was 1km away and one leg was out of service. (We went to the car and the piece of paper with the pin code in it wasn’t there).
Finger print and or retina ID access to the phone hadn’t been set up. Not a problem because 3 relatives were saved as ‘emergency contacts’. Flick the screen up to access ‘emergency contacts’ and press the picture of the one to ring.
‘Network not available – cannot make emergency call’. Hmmff. Move to higher ground. Same message. Hmmff. Drive to overlooking Sheffield with full phone signal. Same message. I then googled the words on the screen of the Galaxy and low and behold … an article (linked below) described the problem.
Essentially the default setting for the Galaxy 9 & 9+ is that pressing the ‘ring emergency contact’ has the same effect as pressing ‘aeroplane mode ON’, it bars itself from getting a signal ergo can’t ring the contact. How very odd.
There is a simple fix to the problem (see article ) but you can only do the fix if you have full access to the phone. Catch 22.
Moral of the story is a) set up finger or retina access if available b) if liable to forgetfulness keep your access code on you but not saved on your phone c) if a Galaxy 9 or 9+ user follow the fix in the article.
It’s not a bad idea if you ‘play outside’ to just run through at home what you’d do to call an emergency contact if you had to. Like actually ring them. Rehearse for reality.