Diver Rescued Thanks to Apple Watch Ultra’s Emergency Siren
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We often hear stories of how an Apple Watch was instrumental in saving someone’s life. While many of these focus on health aspects, such as the heart rate monitor, there are also several instances where the Apple Watch has been able to call 911 for help in an emergency. However, as a diver in Mumbai recently found out, there’s more than one way Apple’s wearables can call for help.
India Today recounts the story of Kshitij Zodape, a 26-year-old “Mumbai techie” who was scuba diving near Puducherry when he had an accident that could have cost him his life — had he not been wearing the right Apple Watch model.
Fortunately, Zodape had an Apple Watch Ultra, which includes a feature we don’t often hear much about: an 86-decibel siren that Apple claims can be heard up to 600 feet away. Once activated, it plays a continuous alert made up of two unique, high-pitched sounds that alternate and repeat, and it doesn’t stop until you turn it off or the Apple Watch runs out of battery.
A few months ago, Kshitij had dived around 36 metres underwater in the Bay of Bengal and was descending further. This is when his weight belt came unstuck. It not only arrested his dive but even propelled him upwards. While he sensed the danger, he was unable to control the ascent or call for help. This was when his Watch Ultra started blaring a siren.
Divya Bhati, India Today
As Zodape began ascending at an unsafe rate, his Apple Watch began warning him to slow down, but he had no way of doing so. When he continued to rapidly shoot upward, the Apple Watch Ultra’s siren activated, alerting his instructor, who heard it and swam back to rescue him from a situation that could have resulted in his lungs rupturing due to the rapid change in pressure.
“I didn’t even know it had that siren feature,” Zodape told India Today.
The siren on the Apple Watch Ultra is undeniably useful, but what makes Zodape’s case unusual is that both India Today and AppleInsider reported that the siren activated automatically due to the depth sensor detecting a problem.
However, this is where the story gets a bit murky. Apple doesn’t document any kind of automatic activation mode for the siren, nor any APIs that would allow third-party apps to trigger it. According to Apple’s watchOS 26 documentation, the siren on the Apple Watch Ultra can only be activated in one of four ways:
- Pressing and holding the Action button until the countdown timer finishes.
- Pressing the side button and dragging the Siren slider to the right.
- Going to the Siren app on your Apple Watch and activating it from there.
- Asking Siri to “Start the siren” and then tapping a button to confirm.
While it’s possible this is an undocumented feature, the lack of any evidence suggests the siren may have been triggered in some other way — either by a different alert during the ascent or by Zodape inadvertently pressing a button.
Either way, it was a stroke of luck for the diver, who didn’t even know the feature existed. The story had a happy ending, capped off when Zodape wrote to Apple CEO Tim Cook and was surprised with a personal reply: “I’m so glad your instructor heard the alarm and quickly assisted you. Thanks so much for sharing your story with us. Be well.”
