What you need to know
- A UK man has been rescued from a flooded river after dialing 999 using his Apple Watch.
A UK man in the county of Herefordshire near Wales has been rescued from a flooded river thanks to his Apple Watch.
As reported by BBC:
A cyclist was rescued from a flooded river after calling 999 from his Apple Watch as he clung to a tree.The man was swept off his bike into the swollen River Wye in Rotherwas, Hereford, on Thursday.He was carried a mile downstream but managed to grab hold of a branch and spoke to fire control.
One emergency responder said the man was "lucky" to have been able to hold onto the branch, and that crews were directed by passers-by who spotted the stranded man. Crews took around 20 minutes to locate and rescue the man. Station commander Sean Bailey said:
"He was speaking to our fire control whilst he was clinging onto a tree, via his Apple Watch, which worked wonderfully well for us to actually get to him as quickly as possible."
The river was so swollen and fast-flowing that the man was rescued about one mile away from where he went into the river. Bailey further noted that even strong swimmers would likely have struggled in the conditions, and that the man was "very lucky" to have caught hold of the branch and cling on for 20 minutes.
Apple's SOS feature, heart rate monitor, ECG, and GPS location tracking have combined on numerous occasions to save the lives of wearers from many different situations including road traffic accidents and kayaking trips.
