Driver's Apple Watch calls 911 after they were involved in an accident

Apple Watch Series 5
Apple Watch Series 5 (Image credit: iMore)

What you need to know

  • A Redditor's Apple Watch notified emergency services.
  • They were involved in a car accident and were knocked unconscious.
  • Thankfully they didn't suffer any injuries.

We've told you of times where an Apple Watch has potentially saved lives in the past and while life wasn't threatened this time, a watch did call 911 when needed. According to Redditor _mr0, they were driving when they were involved in an accident. And the Apple Watch did the rest.

Car accident

Car accident (Image credit: u/_mr0)

According to the Reddit thread the watch called 911 and was in the process of dialling when the wearer "came too." Thankfully they didn't suffer any serious injuries.

Luckily I wasn't hurt but it was comforting to know that the feature really works

It would appear that the Apple Watch's fall detection was triggered at the moment of impact. When the wearer didn't cancel the alert, a call to emergency services was placed exactly as it should have been. The feature did what it is designed to do, although in this instance it fortunately wasn't a matter of life or death.

Oliver Haslam
Contributor

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.