First, you need to make sure you have your emergency contacts set up on your phone under the Health app. Here’s how to make the call on iPhone 8 or later: Press and hold the side button and one of the volume buttons until the ’emergency SOS’ slider appears. Drag the Emergency SOS slider to call emergency services. If you continue to hold down the side button and volume button, instead of dragging the slider, a countdown will start and an alert will sound. If you hold down the buttons until the countdown has finished, your iPhone will automatically call the emergency services. Here’s how to make the call on iPhone 7 or earlier: Rapidly press the side (or top) button five times. The ’emergency SOS’ slider will appear. Drag the ’emergency SOS’ slider to call emergency services.

On all devices, after the call has finished your iPhone will send your emergency contacts a text message with your current location. If location services is switched off, it will temporarily turn on. If your location changes, your contacts will get an update and you’ll get a notification about 10 minutes later. You can also adjust your settings by searching ’emergency SOS’ in your phone, and you can remove the option to automatically call 999 and just text your emergency contacts instead.