Mike Wuerthele
A pair of calls to the U.S. Coast Guard through Apple's Siri ultimately resulted in the rescue of a critically ill teenager in Texas, after the flooding encroached upon her home and forced the family to the roof.
The 14 year-old Tyler Frank suffers from sickle cell anemia. A crisis was induced from exposure to the flood water, and the shock of the event as a whole. After failed calls to 911 and pleas for help on Facebook, the teen turned to Siri to get help.
The family of five, including Frank's mother and three brothers fled to the roof in the early morning of August 27. Frank used Siri asking that the digital assistant "call the Coast Guard."
The first rescue helicopter arrived on August 28. Coast Guard service members assessed the situation, and informed the family that only the elderly were being taken at that time.
"Coast Guard first responders were faced with an overwhelming request for assistance due to Hurricane Harvey," the Coast Guard told CNN in a statement about the first encounter. "On-scene rescue crews made determinations based upon emergent factors (i.e. immediate, life-threatening situations) and the conditions faced on the scene."
Frank used Siri again to call the Coast Guard, which led to a rescue on the early morning of August 29.
Tyler was released from Texas Children's Hospital on Sept. 1. The family is now staying in a Super 8 hotel near Houston.
"Our car is gone; our house is gone; everything's gone," mother Tameko Frank said. "We have to start over."
Siri debuted in 2011 on the iPhone 4s with iOS 5. Siri's abilities have escalated with time, adding sport scores, restaurant reservations and movie showtimes in iOS 6. Wikipedia and Twitter searches were added with iOS 7. Apple added integrations with Apple Music and the Apple Watch when both products launched.
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10 Comments
These feel good stories are great PR for apple and all for that...
but it when is he going to work in my car, or at my desk...
That's the the real story. Why is she/he still garbage 5 gen. In? I don't need cute snarky responses - quicker, smarter, more reliable or I'll super glue a Echo Dot to my handset because it's just faster
The US Coastguard isn't 911?
I just tried to call the Coast Guard using Siri. Since I don't have CG saved as a contact it couldn't call it, although it was oddly smart enough to tell me that it doesn't have the number to the very specific Coast Guard name and location nearest to my city. My best guess is that the Yelp page for that Coast Guard branch doesn't list a phone number.
PS: For those that want to try out Siri for dialing 9-1-1 there is a 5 second countdown—at least on watchOS 4.0b8—before it actually calls the number.
No. 9-1-1 is just a national N11 code that is used to contact a locally or regional serviced call center that will then dispatch to other services. You can use 9-1-1 to get help from the Coast Guard, if that's the best option, but 9-1-1 is not the Coast Guard, is not the police, is not the fire department, is not a hospital, is not child protective services, is not the FBI, etc.