Emergency SOS via Satellite can help save lives
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Two women were recently stranded in British Columbia and were successfully rescued thanks to Apple’s Emergency SOS – and it may have been the first such rescue in the area.
On newer Apple devices, such as the iPhone 14 lineup, Apple added one Security option with which people can contact emergency services via a satellite connection. One of the women did have an iPhone 14 when the couple got lost on December 23, according to Times settler.
The women were traveling back to Alberta, Canada, when they noticed a highway was closed due to an accident. They used Google maps to find an alternative route and decided to go via the Holmes Forest Service Road.
But the road was only partially plowed and the women got to where the grader had stopped.
“Then it was basically a wall of snow and when they tried to get through it they got stuck,” explains Dwight Yochim, senior manager at BC Search and Rescue.
The location of the women. Source: Times Colonist
Yochim said they were about 12 miles away, stuck in the snow without knowing where they were, and out of cell range.
“There’s no cell service there, but one of them happened to have the new Apple phone with the SOS in it and activated the SOS and as far as I know, that’s the first use of the SOS in British Columbia,” he said.
After the women were able to use the feature, RCMP and Robson Valley Search and Rescue used the GPS location to strategize and figure out what happened and concluded that the women may have gone down the logging road.
“They found them, pulled their vehicle out and had them turn around and get back on the road,” Yochim said. “It’s the kind of thing that may have saved their lives.”
He also said that without Emergency SOS it would have taken the team more than a week to find the women.
BCSAR has been in touch with Apple and will be conducting webinars for SAR managers and base team leaders so everyone knows what to expect with Emergency SOS via Satellite.
Other rescues with the feature
Emergency SOS has also saved other lives. For example, in an incident in December, Emergency SOS saved a man in a remote part of Alaska after becoming stranded, alerted Alaska State Troopers to its location.
Working with local search and rescue teams, the Northwest Arctic Borough Search and Rescue Coordinator sent four search volunteers to the GPS coordinates of the Apple Emergency Response Center. Fortunately, the man was not injured.
In April, Emergency SOS also rescued a snowboarder in Switzerland. On a solo trip at about 10,000 feet, Tim Blakey fell into a hidden canyon in the snow.
Despite an iPhone battery life of 3%, he was able to use Emergency SOS to contact emergency services. Rescuers found him and took him to hospital with an injured ankle.