Apple Watch saves lives again! SOS function saves man from certain death

The Apple Watch, known for sav­ing so many lives with its fea­tures, has now done it again. The pop­u­lar smart­watch has now saved the life of a kayak­er who was washed out to sea by strong cur­rents off Syd­ney’s north coast. Accord­ing to media reports, the man’s life was in dan­ger. The inci­dent could have end­ed trag­i­cal­ly had it not been for the Apple Watch. The SOS emer­gency call func­tion of the smart­watch helped. The row­er was able to use the func­tion to con­tact the emer­gency ser­vices. The help came at the right time.

Accord­ing to a report by iMore, the man was adrift almost 4 kilo­me­ters off­shore. Despite all attempts, he could not return to shore. At that point, he used the Apple Watch’s Emer­gency SOS fea­ture to call for help.

Upon receiv­ing the request, NSW Police Marine Area Com­mand Surf Life­sav­ing con­tact­ed NSW and res­cue heli­copter West­pac to begin search­ing for the kayak and the man row­ing it.

Author­i­ties also report­ed­ly con­tact­ed life­guards and the Fresh­wa­ter Surf Life­sav­ing Club to help with the search and res­cue oper­a­tion. “The man was lucky [a] con­nec­tion on his device to make this des­per­ate call for help,” heli­copter res­cuer Nick Pavlakis was quot­ed as say­ing in local reports.

How to enable Apple Watch SOS feature

An Apple Watch has an SOS but­ton that allows users to con­tact emer­gency ser­vices by press­ing the side but­ton for a few sec­onds. A mobile and acti­vat­ed plan is required to func­tion with­out the user’s iPhone nearby.

In 2016, Apple’s line of smart­watch­es became water­proof to pro­vide cus­tomers with health and exer­cise data while swim­ming and oth­er water sports.