A fire service in North Yorkshire, UK, has reported on Facebook that an Apple Watch helped them find and rescue two people from a car wreckage. The call for the emergency came through an Apple Watch, and then the health information that came through the watch helped emergency services monitor what was happening on the ground.
The details on the printout in the Facebook post also show that rescuers used What3words to help pinpoint the location of the accident.
Apple Watch saving lives
This isn’t the first time that an Apple Watch has helped emergency services save people in trouble. There was a case where an Apple Watch showed its owner that she had a heart irregularity, leading her to get checked out and get life-saving surgery. There are stories where the new crash detection feature has called emergency services to crash sites where no one was conscious, saving the lives of those involved.
Crash detection is a feature on the best Apple Watches and best iPhones that uses the gyroscopes and other tech inside the phone or the watch to detect a crash, alerting emergency services in case the owner is unable to. It isn’t said whether crash detection was what called the emergency services here, but this is a notable feature on the new Apple Watch Series 8.
In this case, not only did the call come from an Apple Watch, but the Apple Watch enabled the Fire Service to keep tabs on what was happening to the owner. It tracked the user’s vitals, like heart rate and blood oxygen. What3words helped pinpoint the location of the crash, using the internet sensation that gives every square meter on earth a 3-word identifier.
There have been some hiccups along the way, however, with the crash detection feature in specific. There have been occasions where the crash detection feature has called emergency services where there is no accident, leading to more false calls. There is something to be said about the benefits the service has brought, however, and the people rescued by it would most likely talk about its benefits no end.