iPhone’s Emergency SOS Feature Saves Family of 3 in Kentucky
Credit: Apple
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Kentucky’s Red River Gorge is located inside the Daniel Boone National Forest. In addition to the historical Native American sites, Red River Gorge offers just about everything for outdoorsmen, like fishing, camping, kayaking, zip-lining, and world-class rock climbing. There are also about 60 miles of hiking trails… plenty of room to get lost. That’s exactly what happened to a family of three, including a young child, this past Tuesday evening.
According to the Wolfe County Search & Rescue Team (WCSART), they received a 911 call around 9:30 p.m. Tuesday night. That sounds late and dark for a family with a young child to be lost on miles of hiking trails. Fortunately, someone in the group had their iPhone handy. The WCSART said they received the 911 call from an “Apple Dispatch Center” and that “a set of coordinates were provided by Apple that showed the group approximately 2.5 miles from the Bison Way Trail Head.” A team was quickly dispatched and found the family “cold, but otherwise uninjured.”
This is the second call WSCART has received in the past couple of weeks by hikers using the SOS messaging feature. Wisely, WSCART encourages all iPhone owners to familiarize themselves with the feature before heading into the wilderness. Hint, hint.
One interesting note from this rescue story is that the family most likely used Emergency SOS via satellite. How do we know? Apple doesn’t have formal “Apple Dispatch Centers,” as indicated in WSCART’s Facebook post. On the other hand, Apple clearly states on its Emergency SOS via satellite page that it has an Emergency Relay Center that receives text messages if they cannot be directly sent to emergency service providers. This Emergency Relay Center then reports the information to local emergency services.
Not only was this family lost, they were likely off the grid and without cell or internet service, too. This scenario ups the ante quite a bit. At this point, it’s impossible to track how many lives this feature has saved. Does this life-saver alone justify the $2,000+ iPhone? I know some Android phones have the feature, too, but we’re talking about the iPhone, folks.
