Following the tragic death of Sarah Everard and the subsequent outpouring of women sharing their own experiences of harassment, fear and unease, there have been many discussions around personal safety and precautions to take if you are walking or travelling alone.
With many reports recently of dog walkers feeling threatened whilst walking in the local area and past reports of young women being followed and harassed in the streets of Southport, it is clear that the issues being discussed at national level are also present in our own town, and we all need to do our part to help tackle them.
Women know all to well the precautions which we have grown up learning to take in our every day lives. Sadly they have become “just one of those things” which we accept and live with. The discussion going on at present is hopefully the first step towards changing attitudes and behaviours, but in the meantime ensuring personal safety is a priority.
All modern mobile phones have built in SOS modes which many users are unaware of. These features can alert emergency services, alert your contacts and share your location if you are ever in danger.
We have put together the below short guide on how to use these functions in case of emergency and what to do if you find yourself in a situation where you feel unsafe.
iPhones
The iPhone emergency SOS feature calls 999 and sends your location to your designated emergency contacts.
If you have an iPhone 8 or later version to activate the feature you need to hold down the power button and one of the volume buttons at the same time.
“Emergency SOS” will then appear on the screen, if you keep the buttons held down, the phone will begin a countdown from 3 and then call emergency services.
If you have set up emergency contacts your phone will then send them your location once the call with emergency services disconnects.
For the iPhone 7 or earlier models to activate the feature press the power button five times in quick succession and then slide your finger across the “Emergency SOS” slider which will appear on screen.
If you fail to slide the “Emergency SOS” slider on screen an alarm will start sounding.
Android Phones
Android phones will allow you to set up an emergency contact who you can share your location with if you are in danger.
To set it up you need to activate the feature via the SOS or “Emergency” setting on your phone. You should be able to select a quick activation mode from a number of options allowing you to send out an emergency alert by pressing the power button in quick succession a designated number of times.
Once you have allocated an emergency contact this person will receive an alert detailing your location together with images taken by the phone if the SOS mode is triggered.
In addition all Merseyside Fire and Rescue Service community fire stations are Safe Havens and are available to anyone as a place of safety if they feel threatened or are in danger.