I recall a patient who arrived unconscious and unidentified in a hospital's emergency room after a head-on auto crash. Somehow, in the immediate confusion after the wreck, his wallet had "disappeared." Had he been wearing MedicAlert ID, he could have been identified, his family could have been identified, and his health condition identified. (Although on insulin therapy, his blood sugar in the ER was normal — implying he might have been hypoglycemic earlier — but there was no way the ER staff could know he had diabetes since the sugar level was okay.)

In stress situations, blood sugar usually goes up; even if your sugar was normal on arrival in the ER, if you were unconscious and unable to tell the doctors about your diabetes, they'd probably start I.V. glucose and not realize that they were "pouring gasoline on a fire." If you can't talk, let your MedicAlert ID talk for you.

P.S.: Please note that the word "MedicAlert" is a registered trademark of MedicAlert Foundation International, a 501(c) (3) nonprofit membership organization. Their website is at http://medicalert.org. I am a life member of MedicAlert, and strongly feel that any other type of medical identification is a poor substitute.

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Anyone with a chronic disease (diabetes, cardiovascular disease, hypertension, asthma, etc.) should have a Medic Alert bracelet or other identification jewelry for EMS personnel to check if an emergency occurs. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure!

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