Registration system launched for victims’ emergency contacts

By Marc Kovac

The database was created because of two incidents where victims’ family members weren’t notified quickly.

COLUMBUS — The state officially launched a new registration system Monday, allowing Ohio drivers to provide emergency contact information for use by law enforcement after serious accidents.

The next-of-kin database was created by lawmakers earlier his year, via the passage of legislation offered by Rep. Jim McGregor, a Republican from the Columbus area.

The new law was labeled the Money-Burge Act in memory of two individuals who were killed in separate automobile accidents but whose families were not notified until hours later because officers did not have access to their contact information.

In one case, the victim was taken to the hospital alive but died there. In the other, the family learned secondhand their child was involved in an accident after friends were notified.

In both cases, the adult children had different last names than their immediate family members.

The legislation required the Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles to establish the voluntary database for individuals issued driver’s licenses, temporary instruction permits or state identification cards.

Individuals can provide the name, address, telephone number and relationship of at least one emergency contact, for use only by law enforcement in the event that they are killed, seriously injured or otherwise unable to communicate.

Anyone younger than 18 can participate, but one of the emergency contacts submitted to the state must be an individual’s parent or guardian. The process can be completed online (at www.bmv.ohio.gov), through mail or at Bureau of Motor Vehicle offices statewide.

The emergency contact information is not a public record and can be accessed only by law enforcement.

Carmella Wiant and Linda Wuestenberg, whose sons were memorialized in naming the legislation, became the first people in the state to enter information in the next-of-kin database. They were among the vocal proponents who pushed lawmakers to pass legislation earlier this year creating the system.

“Every single individual in this room needs to make a personal commitment to share this information with everyone they know and to ask everyone they know to also share,” Wuestenberg said.

mkovac@dixcom.com