Apple Watch may have saved another life. This time a driver knocked unconscious during a collision

Apple Watch Series 5 (Image credit: iMore)

What you need to know

An Apple Watch alerted emergency services of an incident involving an unconscious driver.
Apple Watch's fall detection called and provided exact GPS data.
Fall detection is available on Apple Watch Series 4 and newer.

Apple Watch has already proven more than capable when it comes to saving lives and it's been at it again. This time alerting emergency services when a driver was knocked unconscious during a traffic incident.

The incident happened in Surrey, UK, with the local police force tweeting that they were able to attend because an Apple Watch called the emergency services after it detected a fall. Presumably the force of the impact was enough to trigger the alert.

Last week we responded to an automated Apple Watch fall detection alert after a driver that was involved in a collision had been knocked unconscious.

The alarm provided emergency responders with GPS data to quickly locate the scene.

⌚️🛰 > 🚓🚑🚒@Apple @tim_cook pic.twitter.com/cmTW6K2na0Last week we responded to an automated Apple Watch fall detection alert after a driver that was involved in a collision had been knocked unconscious.

The alarm provided emergency responders with GPS data to quickly locate the scene.

⌚️🛰 > 🚓🚑🚒@Apple @tim_cook pic.twitter.com/cmTW6K2na0— Roads Policing Unit (RPU) - Surrey Police - UK (@SurreyRoadCops) November 4, 2019 November 4, 2019

Once the emergency services were alerted the Apple Watch was also able to provide a GPS location, taking responders straight to the person involved. No further information was provided as to how the incident happened or how the person involved fared.

When Apple Watch detects what it believes to be a fall it taps the wearer on the wrist and sounds an alarm. If no action is taken after 60 seconds it automatically calls the emergency services, as happened in this instance.

Rene Ritchie displaying fall detection — Rene falling with Apple Watch (Image credit: iMore)

Fall detection is available on Apple Watch Series 4 and newer and is absolutely well worth taking the time to enable. It's a feature that has already saved lives.

Oliver Haslam has written about Apple and the wider technology business for more than a decade with bylines on How-To Geek, PC Mag, iDownloadBlog, and many more. He has also been published in print for Macworld, including cover stories. At iMore, Oliver is involved in daily news coverage and, not being short of opinions, has been known to 'explain' those thoughts in more detail, too.

Having grown up using PCs and spending far too much money on graphics card and flashy RAM, Oliver switched to the Mac with a G5 iMac and hasn't looked back. Since then he's seen the growth of the smartphone world, backed by iPhone, and new product categories come and go. Current expertise includes iOS, macOS, streaming services, and pretty much anything that has a battery or plugs into a wall. Oliver also covers mobile gaming for iMore, with Apple Arcade a particular focus. He's been gaming since the Atari 2600 days and still struggles to comprehend the fact he can play console quality titles on his pocket computer.