The Apple Watch offers many useful features, and now the fall detection feature of this smartwatch has helped save the life of a mountaineer.
Apple Watch has various features to save users’ lives, one of the most useful of which is fall detection. A man named Menand was walking with his two dogs in the Chattahoochee River National Recreation Area when the dogs noticed a wolf. “The dogs got scared and knocked me down,” he explained.
When the Apple Watch detects Menand’s fall, it taps his wrist, sounds an alarm, and displays a warning on the other side. The user can silence the alarm by pressing the rotary button, tapping Close in the upper left corner, or tapping I’m OK. However, if the Apple Watch does not detect any movement for about a minute, it will automatically call emergency services.
“After I fell on the floor, I couldn’t even reach the phone because it was in my pocket and I was lying on it,” Menand said. It is impossible to say how long I lay there waiting. I realized that I couldn’t move and I couldn’t stand and I felt a lot of pain all over my body. “When I called 911, they stayed by my side until 911 arrived.”
Menand had to have a titanium rod inserted in her leg and is now recovering.
Menand realized how much it helped him to have the Apple Watch with him on the day of the accident because not long after his fall, a 46-year-old woman and her two dogs fell in the same park, but unfortunately, she did not survive. “When I realized that the woman had died, I thought to myself that I could have been her because I was alone and no one was around me and no one knew where I was,” says Menand.
After his fall, Menand sent a note thanking Apple CEO Tim Cook. Fox 5 shared an interesting video with the help of Apple to better spread the story of this climber. If you’ve entered your age in Apple Watch or the Health app and you’re 55 or older, turn on Fall Detection by going to Settings in Apple Watch > My Watch > Emergency SOS.
