Apple Watch fall detection feature credited with saving 85-year-old after fall

The Apple Watch is credited with saving the life of an elderly Ottawa resident who took a fall, allowing police to locate him while he was unconscious.

On the evening of November 28, an 85-year-old man living alone in Ottawa took a fall while at home. The fall knocked him unconscious and left him with a head wound. Forunately, his Apple Watch detected his fall, and after a minute, called 911.

An automated message was sent to an Ottawa Police Communicator. The communicator was able to dispatch police to his location after she heard the man breathing and his dog barking in the background, according to an Instagram post by the Ottawa Police department.

Constable Andrew Barrett and Constable Damian Levesque arrived on the scene shortly after being dispatched. They were able to bandage the man's wounds while they waited for paramedics to arrive. The officers then called the man's daughter, advising her that her father had fallen.

The man was taken to the hospital, and officers later learned that doctors believe the man will make a full recovery and be able to spend Christmas with his family.

The Apple Watch is often credited with saving wearers' lives after falls or cardiac events. In September, A 24-year-old motorcyclist was brought to a hospital after a hit-and-run when his Apple Watch detected that he'd taken a hard fall.

In July, a Michigan woman credited the Apple Watch for saving her life by detecting she had a high heart rate — that was caused by a heart attack.

6 Comments

iOS_Guy80 5 Years · 905 comments

About 3 years ago

Thank you very much for these stories and incidents that occur when people are wearing an Apple Watch and how it helps out in these situations I use them to convince others to consider using the Apple Watch.

coolfactor 20 Years · 2341 comments

So the watch is in audio mode, rather than sending an automated text message? But it does share the associated phone number, registered address and GPS location.

With GPS now offering precise and non-precise location data, does this emergency mode automatically force precise mode? I'd imagine so, and I believe they can triangulate a cell signal without the device itself sharing its location.

DrumHead 5 Years · 10 comments

Playing with my band at a dance hall one night, in the middle of a song, my Apple Watch buzzed the fall alert. I barely deactivated the EMS alert before it was going to send out the alert. Now the watch stays in my gig bag during shows.

beowulfschmidt 12 Years · 2361 comments

DrumHead said:

Playing with my band at a dance hall one night, in the middle of a song, my Apple Watch buzzed the fall alert. I barely deactivated the EMS alert before it was going to send out the alert. Now the watch stays in my gig bag during shows.

Did you report that issue? Might be Apple could do something about such false alerts. If they knew of it.

GeorgeBMac 8 Years · 11421 comments

iOS_Guy80 said:

Thank you very much for these stories and incidents that occur when people are wearing an Apple Watch and how it helps out in these situations I use them to convince others to consider using the Apple Watch.

Strangely and sadly, I find people highly resistant to wearing one for safety reasons.
It's like back in the 60's when they put seat belts in cars but "real men" refused to wear them for regular driving. One of the iconic scenes in the iconic movie Bullet was the guys in Charger clicking on their seat belts at the start of the chase.

A friend regularly walks her dog alone on dark roads at night. She won't take her phone (no pockets!) but, although she wears her Apple Watch with LTE to track her steps, she will not active the LTE. It's really not a money issue -- it's just some weird resistance.
Typically the reasoning is: "Nothing is going to happen to me!"