How could we help rescuers to give proper attention to a victim, when their condition doesn't allow them to give vital medical information about themselves? The challenge was to find a simple and accessible solution that could overcome the lack of prevention culture among Mexican people. The objective was to reduce the number of deaths because of wrong treatments and cases of anaphylaxis, caused by not having the right information at the right moment. SOS SMS is an emergency service that the Red Cross rescuers can easily access by dialing *SOS in the victim's cellphone emergency screen.

We sent an SMS countrywide invitation to cellphone users to enlist to the service. They could enter their medical information in our database by replying to the message or by entering the Red Cross website, turning their cellphone into a tool to save their own lives.

In the pre-launch stage 300,000 users were invited via SMS, since march 19th 2015.

So far, 40% have successfully registered their personal medical information in the Red Cross database.

The launch stage will be supported by a national media campaign, after which we expect to reach 80% of all the cellphone users in Mexico.

The analysis of the data is quite simple. The total population of Mexico is 119,715,000 and the cellphone penetration is 90%. This means 107,743,500 persons carrying a cellphone with them everyday.

Everyone is susceptible to have an accident, and the Mexican Red Cross is the most reliable rescuing institution throughout the country. If all cellphones could become tools of medical information to help save people's lives, the main objective was to reach all of them. The media itself is at the core of the idea, but it also worked as the medium to gather users and also the valuable medical data from each of them.

This idea relies on the gathered data to succeed. SOS SMS is an emergency service that gives the Red Cross rescuers access to the patient's medical information by dialing *SOS in the victim's cellphone emergency screen. We are creating a national database that gathers the basic medical information from the user and associates it with his cellphone number. After receiving an invite via SMS, the users can register their information in the Red Cross database, either by replying the SMS or by entering the website. When the rescuer dials the code, the carrier connects to the Red Cross database and returns a message to the victim's mobile displaying no sensible personal information, just gender, age, height and weight, to properly identify the patient; but also important and vital information is available to the rescuer, like blood type, allergies, medical conditions, pregnancy or medicated drugs. Thanks this data the victim's cellphone became a tool that rescuers can use to save their life.