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Teach Your Kid, Grandkid to Dial 911 on Your Cellphone When You’re Unable

Smartphones have shortcuts when you need emergency assistance


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Photo Collage: AARP; (Source: Getty Images (3))

I’ve recently been diagnosed with cardiac arrhythmias, which sometimes leave me feeling faint and lightheaded.

One day when watching my 5-year-old grandson, I experienced an episode, and I worry it can happen again. Can I teach him how to dial 911 when there’s no landline in the house and he doesn’t know the password on my cellphone? — Ann L.

Being incapacitated and unable to seek emergency assistance is frightening. So I certainly understand why you would want to train even a very young child like your grandson to dial for help when you can’t, especially when your phone is locked.

You didn’t say what kind of phone you have. But iPhones and many Android handsets have similar emergency features that are easy to learn yourself and teach a child.

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One way involves rapidly pressing a button five times. The phone will automatically call 911 and sometimes another designated phone number.

Another is to use the emergency button on the phone’s lock screen. But in that case, you’ll also have to teach your grandson to dial 911, which we’ll go through first.

Related: Why passkeys could be the new future of logging in

How to make an emergency call on any smartphone

If he knows how to activate your phone by swiping up on an iPhone screen or tapping the power or side button on an Android such as a Google Pixel or Samsung Galaxy, he can make an emergency call.

On an iPhone, he can pick up the phone or tap the screen to wake it up. Then after swiping up, he’ll see the word Emergency in the lower left corner of the locked screen. Tapping Emergency will reveal a keypad that allows anyone to dial 911 and hit the green call button.

If you have an Android smartphone, press the side button, also called the power button on a Pixel, then swipe up to find the Emergency call button centered at the bottom. Continued tapping on the screen, sometimes as few as two times, will also wake up the screen and allow a person to swipe up to see the Emergency call button.

On a Samsung Galaxy, tapping Emergency call will reveal a keypad, similar to an iPhone, that allows anyone to dial 911 and hit the green call button. The Emergency number button above the keypad reveals a screen that may show additional calling options, besides the United States’ 911.

On a Pixel 6 or later with Android 12 or later, press the power button and volume up button at the same time. Tap Emergency.  It goes to a red asterisk slider next to Call 911, what Google has dubbed a Fast Emergency Dialer that detects in what country and where in the country you are to reveal the correct emergency number. Sliding it to the right begins the U.S. 911 call.

If you have an older Pixel and version of Android, start by holding the Power button for five seconds.

A reason to keep an old phone: All mobile phones, even those without an active carrier, phone number or SIM card, can be used to dial 911 if a cell signal is nearby.

But — and this is the same weakness of the early days of cellphones — the person calling needs to know the address where help should be sent. The phone won’t be able to transmit location information to the dispatcher who answers, and if the caller hangs up, a dispatcher can’t call back to get more information because the phone has no number.

Related: How to Find Wireless Emergency Alerts on Your Smartphone

How to send an SOS on an Android phone

Emergency SOS is like a 911 call but can be more inclusive. You can set it to notify family and friends when your phone is used to call emergency services. It is available on devices running Android 12 or later.

Google Pixel. On this smartphone, the button you press is the power button, but you’ll want to make sure Emergency SOS is enabled first. Tap Settings ⚙️ | Safety & Emergency | Emergency SOS | Turn on Emergency SOS.

The digits 911 are selected by default, but you can tap to change that number if you’d rather call a family member or caregiver. Google provides additional options in Settings.

You might want to determine in advance whom to call. A 5-year-old probably won’t mess with the list.

Rather than have those five presses automatically summon help following a five-second countdown, you can choose a Touch & hold option where you or someone else can touch and hold a circle that appears on the screen to require confirmation before emergency actions kick in.

If the kid you’re watching doesn’t follow instructions or is more likely to press the power button five times without an emergency, you can turn off Emergency SOS altogether. Tap the Call emergency services toggle switch to shut it off, but remember to turn it back on later.

You also can have the phone automatically text your location to designated contacts, presumably grown-ups, if an emergency occurs. Inside Settings, Pixel owners can tap a button to try a simulated demo of what to expect after Emergency SOS starts, which you might want to show your grandson to train him.

Samsung Galaxy. Samsung Galaxy owners can visit Settings ⚙️ | Safety and Emergency | Emergency SOS to launch the feature on their handsets. On such devices, you press the side button five times.

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You can change the emergency number from 911 to something else, like on a Pixel, and text your location to emergency contacts. Another option lets you require a swipe of the call button after pressing the side button five times before the emergency number is called.

How to send an SOS on an iPhone

As with Android, the five-press routine works on iPhones, too.

Go to Settings ⚙️ | Emergency SOS and make sure the Call with 5 Button Presses switch is enabled, meaning green rather than gray is showing. If so, those five rapid presses will initiate an alarm and a countdown, after which the local emergency services will be called.

You’ll have about 8 seconds to stop the call if you or a child does this accidentally or otherwise. To help the emergency dispatcher assist you, the call may include your location even if you haven’t enabled your location in Location settings, Apple says.

If you enable the Call with Hold and Release button in Settings, continuously holding the side button and either volume button sounds an alarm and starts a countdown. The iPhone will call emergency services after the countdown ends once you release the buttons, and then slide the SOS Emergency Call button that appears on the screen.

Tap the X in a circle ⨂ to cancel or slide the Medical ID button to surface your emergency contacts plus additional information about your height, weight, blood type and any medical conditions you have, which you would have previously set up in the Health app on the phone.

Within Emergency SOS in Settings ⚙️, you also can tap a Call Quietly switch to silence warning alarms, flashes and VoiceOver audio.

Bonus tip: Record the emergency on a Pixel

If you have a Google Pixel, you can record a continuous video of an emergency episode of up to 45 minutes. Tap Safety & emergency | Emergency SOS | Record emergency video. Such videos are automatically backed up to your Google Account and the Personal Safety app on the phone.

Your emergency contacts will automatically receive a link to the video. You’ll have 15 seconds after the recording stops to cancel sharing.

Only a single sharing link per video can be active at a given time, Google says. And each link has a seven-day expiration to protect your privacy.

Inside the Help settings on the Pixel, Google cautions folks to use video sharing carefully: “Recordings of emergency events may be disturbing to your emergency contacts and may cause those persons distress.”

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