Apple Watch saves skier who fell 1,000 feet injuring his leg in freezing weather

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Over the years the Apple Watch has saved several lives although each one has been unique. Apple can carve another notch on the Apple Watch's wristband for the timepiece's latest rescue, this one taking place out west in Washington this past Wednesday when the Chelan County Sheriff's Office received a call from an Apple Watch using the timepiece's Emergency SOS system. Thanks to Fall Detection, Crash Detection, and Emergency SOS, an Apple Watch user in an accident can notify first responders in the case of a crash, accident, or other emergency.

Even if the victim is out cold, the watch will call for help and even pass along the location of the person who needs help. It can also call the user's emergency contacts to alert them of a problem and will also include the location of the injured person. After the Sheriff's office received the call from the Apple Watch, the law enforcement crew called for help from King County Air Support to transport an injured skier. The only info known about the victim was that he was a skier and had fallen 1,000 feet injuring one of his legs.

With the injured person in danger of freezing to death thanks to the extremely cold temperature, the rescue team took off just after sunset on Wednesday and eventually found the injured skier. A video released by King County Sheriff Air Support shows the rescue and you can see someone with the victim waving to the rescue crew at about 1 minute and 14 seconds into the video. Since the camera was apparently using heat-sensing equipment, what you see is an eerie-looking white human form waving.

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As the chopper moves closer, you can make out the outline of the victim lying on the ground while someone else signals the first responders. After some in-air maneuvering, the helicopter was directly over the injured skier, and a member of the rescue team was gently lowered to the surface. The injured skier was hooked up to the equipment that allowed him to be pulled into the helicopter.

During the rescue mission, the team discovered that a second skier had hurt himself and could not walk. The decision was made to hoist all three people into the chopper and fly them to a hospital to receive medical treatment.

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If the first skier did not have the Apple Watch to call for help and include his location automatically, it is quite possible that he would have died from Hypothermia (freezing to death). The same fate might have awaited his accomplice and the second injured skier. All in all, it was another example of how the Apple Watch has been a lifesaver.
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