Stephen Silver
17-year-old used Siri to make an emergency call after a motorcycle crash.
After numerous reports in recent months of lives being saved all over the world due to the Apple Watch noticing users' serious medical conditions, it now appears another piece of Apple technology has come in handy for someone in a bad spot.
According to a report this week in the Sydney Morning Herald, a 17-year-old in New South Wales, Australia used Siri on his iPhone to summon medical assistance following a serious motorbike accident.
Darcy McKay, on May 17, crashed his bike on a bush track, suffering multiple fractures to his vertebrae, a fractured tail bone, a broken pelvis bone and even bleeding from the pancreas. After the crash, unable to move, McKay asked Siri on his iPhone to call triple zero — the Australian equivalent of 911 — and emergency services arrived 20 minutes later.
"I am so happy I thought of using [Siri], otherwise I would have been stuffed," McKay told the newspaper. He encouraged others to make sure to activist Siri on their phones.
"If a situation like that happens, you need Siri. So people should really have it set up on their phone otherwise you can't use it," he told the Herald.
The report arrives at a time when Siri's value and utility has been questioned, especially in relationship to Amazon's Alexa and other competitors. A March piece on the tech website The Information detailed years of infighting and other dysfunction within Apple's Siri teams.
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15 Comments
Thanks for reminding me of the ONE moment I would NEVER use Siri
while admirable and a great life-saving feature. From my own experiences with Siri, if I was ever in the same situation...
Me -Hey Siri, call 999!
Siri -Let me think about that...
Siri -OK, here's what I found for "colin mine find"
Me -wtf
3 or 4 attempts later and a few extra pints of blood lost, it works. :sweat_smile: :trollface:
granted, it's maybe easier to tailor speech recognition in places where most of the country sound the same (Australia, US etc.) in the UK there are countless dialects and accents to deal with that vary so wildly.
Person: Alexa, I can't move! Call 911!!
I was just testing this with my Watch yesterday to get some practice with the two options available, Siri and the long press of the side button plus slide of the Emergency SOS option. I hope I never have to use it, but I'm glad it's an option.
If having Siri understand 9-9-9 is an issue, you can set up a contact with that phone number but with a contact name that Siri will understand.