Apple debuted its new Emergency SOS via satellite feature for iPhone 14 customers again in November, and we’ve already seen a number of tales concerning the feature being utilized in the actual world. A brand new story out of Canada at present presents one other instance of Emergency SOS via satellite serving to save the lives of two ladies who discovered themselves stranded within the wilderness after a Google Maps mishap…
iPhone 14’s Emergency SOS via satellite saves the day
As reported by the Times Colonist, the 2 ladies had been on their method dwelling after a journey to Alberta once they acquired misplaced close to McBride, a small village in British Columbia, Canada. On the drive again, an accident ended up closing the primary freeway, so the ladies checked Google Maps for an alternate route.
Google Maps led them via a detour onto a service street in Holmes Forrest. This service street had solely been “partially plowed” following a number of snowstorms, which the ladies didn’t know once they embarked down the street.
They made it round 20 kilometers down the street, in line with search and rescue authorities, earlier than hitting a “wall of snow,” indicating the place the plow had stopped, and getting caught. Given they had been that far down a service street in a forest, there was no cell service obtainable. One of the ladies, nevertheless, had an iPhone 14 and thought to make use of the brand new Emergency SOS via satellite feature.
Using the iPhone 14, they had been capable of ship a message and their location to an Apple name middle. From there, the Apple name middle contacted the “Northern911” name middle in Canada, which then activated a name to emergency service teams in British Columbia. That ultimate emergency providers staff acquired a “packet of information,” together with the GPS coordinates.
Search and rescue dispatchers, together with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, the British Columbia Search and rescue staff, and the Robson Valley Search and Rescue, had been capable of find the 2 ladies utilizing the GPS coordinates. They pulled the car out of the snow and helped it get circled and headed again towards the freeway.
“A game changer”
Dwight Yochim, a senior supervisor with British Columbia Search and Rescue, stated he believes that is the “first use” of the brand new feature in British Columbia.
There’s no cell service there however certainly one of them occurred to have the brand new Apple telephone that has the SOS in it and activated the SOS and to my data, that’s the primary use of the SOS in British Columbia.
If they didn’t have this, what would have occurred is finally the household or their work would have stated “hey, they didn’t show up” and so the search space would have been from wherever they had been final seen to the place they’re alleged to be, and that would have been a number of hundred kilometres.
“It’s the kind of thing that potentially may have saved their life,” Yochim went on to say. “This is a game changer. This technology has the potential of really helping us save lives and reducing the amount of time it takes to do that.”
For context, Yochim estimates that his staff does round 1,700 to 1,800 searches a 12 months. Emergency SOS via satellite on the iPhone 14 can considerably lower down on the quantity. “If we know exactly where the subject is, then all we have to do is go in and rescue them,” stated Yochim.
You can be taught extra about find out how to use Emergency SOS via satellite on the iPhone 14 in our full information.
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