Staging an Emergency Cell Phone
Rob PincusDescription
In all our fundamentals of home defense tactics, we talk about communicating with 911, calling emergency services, and letting law enforcement know something bad is happening in our home.
Home Invasion Scenario
If you’re barricaded in your staging area with your family, whether you have a firearm or not, calling 911 is really important. But in this day and age, most houses don’t have landline phones in every room. And you may not have your cell phone on you when you get trapped somewhere in your home.
If you have a place in your home that you plan on going in the event of a home invasion or other break-in, a place where you might put a Tactical Walls clandestine quick-access storage unit, consider staging an emergency cell phone there along with your defensive firearm and med kit.
How to Stage an Emergency Cell Phone
Drill a hole in the bottom of the storage unit and run the charging cord of the emergency cell phone through it. Keep the cord plugged into the wall, and plug the phone into the other end to keep it charged.
What kind of phone? An old one, one you are not currently using. It can be an off-contract phone. It will still make an emergency call. Just touch the phone to wake it up, touch the word “emergency” on the lock screen, and it will take you to the screen that you can make the emergency call from.
Many people are not aware that off-contract cell phones will make an emergency call. You probably know it because you watch our home security tips videos here at PDN. So share this video with anyone who might not know that instead of tucking that old cell phone in a drawer, they can keep it charged and staged for emergency use.
In all of our fundamentals of home defense tactics, we talk about communicating with 911, calling emergency services. Letting the police know that something's happening in your house. If you're barricaded, you've gotten to your staging area, you've got a firearm, family behind you. Even if you don't have a firearm and you're alone, calling 911 is gonna be really important. But in this day and age, many people don't have hard-line phones in every room. You may not have your cell phone in your pocket or anywhere near you when you get trapped somewhere and you are barricaded. Well, if you have a place where you plan on going, the kinda place you'd put something like this, tactical walls, quick-access, clandestine storage area, with a defensive firearm and a medical kit. You might also wanna think about staging an emergency phone. Now, you can see what I've done here, that is simply drilled a hole in the bottom of this unit, and run a cord through there. We've got the cord plugged in to the wall, and on this side, we've got an old phone. Now, this old cell phone is off contract. The old phone still will make an emergency call though. All I need to do is wake it up, and then hit the emergency button, and it's gonna take me to the screen where I can make that emergency call. Now, a lot of people aren't even aware, if they don't watch Personal Defense Network, they haven't read my book on home defense, they haven't seen any of our TV segments or heard our radio interviews, that this can be done. So share this video with anybody you know, whether they have a quick-access security setup or not, whether they even have a firearm in their home, they may not know that that old cell phone that's tucked in a drawer can be plugged in and staged for emergency use, just in case they don't have a hard-line and they don't have their cell phone with 'em when they need it.
These old phones can't be called back if you are disconnected. Also lithium-ion batteries, which most cell phones use, have been widely reported to explode if over charged. It is recommend that these not be left plugged into a charger longer than necessary to maintain the charge.
Keep in mind that cell phones, and especially ones off service, may not transmit an accurate location to 911 dispatchers, so giving the emergency operator the Where of the 5 Ws is important. And if you have passed a phone to a child to call, make sure the child can express the address. Thanks for the video tips.
using an old phone won't always give GPS location, so be sure your old phone can and is set up to do so.