Florida deputies credit man’s iPhone with helping them rescue him from his flipped car
By Ari Hait
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MARTIN COUNTY, Florida (WPBF) — Video released Wednesday by the Martin County Sheriff’s Office shows deputies frantically rescuing a man who had flipped his car into a canal.
But what’s equally as amazing as the rescue is the way deputies learned of the crash.
The crash happened just after 1 a.m. Wednesday on a dark, rural road near Indiantown.
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The driver, whose name has not been released, told deputies he swerved to avoid a hog in the road and wound up on his roof in the canal.
The man was dazed and unable to call 911.
So his phone did it for him.
“The Apple cellphone was programmed to alert our dispatch of a crash,” said Martin County chief deputy John Budensiek.
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It’s a feature on an iPhone or an Apple watch called crash detection.
It senses the impact and calls for help.
“The owner of this iPhone was in a serious car crash and is not responding to their phone,” the voice tells the 911 dispatcher before providing latitude and longitude coordinates of where the crash happened.
In this case, the call enabled deputies to reach the scene in eight minutes.
The video from the deputies’ body cams shows deputies immediately jumping into the canal.
“OK, buddy. I got you,” one deputy said to the driver. “I’m going to figure a way in.”
Deputies were unable to open the door or break the window.
“So, they ended up actually prying the door open and ended up encountering the driver who appeared to be in a state of hypothermia,” Budensiek said.
“Hey, can you move, bud?” a deputy asked the driver. “Do you think you can get out?”
“Can you get me a blanket please, sir?” the driver responded. “I’m freezing.”
Deputies confirmed the driver wasn’t pinned in the car and then slowly lifted him out and carried him to safety.
Budensiek said the 38-year-old man suffered only minor injuries and is expected to make a full recovery.
He said it was a rescue that may never have happened without the man’s phone.
“He was far enough off the road in the canal where he likely would not have been seen until morning,” Budensiek said. “He very well might not have survived that based on his condition.”
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