A 20-year-old Florida woman discovered the health benefits of owning an Apple Watch when it indirectly saved her life as her flipped car was filling with water.
Amanda Antonio told first responders in Hillsborough County, Fla., that she used her Apple Watch to locate her iPhone to call 9-1-1 after her car rolled in a ditch full of mud and water.
Life-saving Apple Watch to the rescue
“It’s up to my waist,” Antonio said according to a transcript of the call obtained by Spectrum Bay News 9, a television station covering the Tampa-St. Petersburg area. She later said, “It’s now up to my chin. I’m freezing. I’m so scared.”
Antonio’s accident is yet another headline for the Apple Watch, which has been credited with detecting potentially fatal heart ailments with the ECG feature. The Apple Watch continues to be the best selling smartwatch, a device the public has been slow to embrace.
The holiday shopping season didn’t boost iPhone sales like Apple anticipated, but one analyst said the Apple Watch Series 4 was so hot, it could beat the iPod in holiday sales records.
Antonio was driving east on I-4 around 4 a.m. on New Years Day, when she lost control of her car after another driver cut her off. The car flipped several times and landed in a ditch.
The 9-1-1 dispatcher kept Antonio calm until sheriff’s deputies arrived to free her.
The accident trapped Antonio and sent her iPhone flying. The News 9 report does not say exactly how Antonio used her watch to search for her handset.
It is likely she used the ping feature. A tap of the ping button in the watch’s control center activates a short burst of sound in the iPhone when the devices are connected via Bluetooth.
Sheriff’s deputies arrived in time to free her from the submerged vehicle.
Source: Spectrum Bay News 9
