Some of you know I am an iceboater; I sail and race iceboats around on (hopefully) frozen expanses of water at (hopefully) high rates of speed whenever I can in the wintertime.

We had a disaster on the ice in New England this Winter; two brothers warming up for a race collided. One was killed, the other very seriously injured. Since most of us leave our wallets ashore when racing, they were carrying no ID.

Not only did nobody on the ice know details of relatives names or phones to call, but when the brothers arrived at the local hospital there was confusion for a short time as to which was which. It was a dangerous situation.

We are recommending that racers next year obtain and wear dog tags with emergency information on them. I found a good guy in California who engraves stainless tags on two sides (the stamped tags Uncle Sugar provides can only be used on one side, remember?) and fits more letters per line on them.

His name is Don Carrick, he's been in business for a long time, and he runs a very secure web site. You may want to think about getting in touch with him, if you make a habit of any sort of activity where you might leave your wallet or other identifying information somewhere else. Even if you walk around the block... who knows?

We recommended to the iceboaters that full name, blood type, SSN, DOB, and address be on one side of the tag, then an emergency contact name and phone(s), plus any medical notes, be put on the back. Some guys are putting a Dr's name and phone there.

Anyway, in case anyone has a need for it, you can get a nice stainless tag engraved, on a good neck chain, for 7 or 8 dollars:

http://www.boomerangtags.com/page.php?c=military

Bob K--