Apple AirTag saves dog swept away in California floods

AirTag held in hand
(Image credit: Joseph Keller / iMore)

A dog swept away by floodwaters in San Bernardino County, California was rescued by firefighters with the help of an Apple AirTag. 

Seamus, a 1-year-old Australian Shepherd, was equipped with the AirTag and a more conventional ID tag when he fell into the rapid floodwaters that swept him away. 

"He got away from me, and he just went down into this drainage," Seamus' owner Emilie Brill told ABC7 New York. "The water was going so fast. I think all it took was one paw in that water, and he was gone."

The local fire department located Seamus a mile away from where he fell thanks to a local employee that heard the dog barking in the nearby channel — Seamus was found wet and petrified in a drain access tube. “After assessing the dog he seemed uninjured & in good spirits” the San Bernardino County Fire department confirmed in a Facebook post.

wet dog in drain access tube with Apple Airtag on collar

(Image credit: San Bernardino County Fire)

Apple’s Find My network and the AirTag on his collar helped track his owners in order to reunite them. "I was just blown away by that level of response from our emergency services," Brill said. 

Apple launched the AirTag in late 2021 and the device has since found its place for consumers within Apple’s ecosystem. Since its release, the AirTag has appeared in the news for a number of reasons. Stories like finding Seamus showcase the device in a positive light, yet, there have been reports of more sinister examples like stalking

Apple’s Find My network has a wide range of use cases and a variety of accessories that allow users to keep track of their locations. The best Find My accessories range from trackable bicycles to headphones, although saving your dog from a disaster makes the AirTag an indispensable accessory for dog owners. 

If you’ve just purchased an AirTag and looking to find out the best ways to attach them to your dog or your backpack, check out our list of the best AirTag accessories in 2023.

John-Anthony Disotto
How To Editor

John-Anthony Disotto is the How To Editor of iMore, ensuring you can get the most from your Apple products and helping fix things when your technology isn’t behaving itself.

Living in Scotland, where he worked for Apple as a technician focused on iOS and iPhone repairs at the Genius Bar, John-Anthony has used the Apple ecosystem for over a decade and prides himself in his ability to complete his Apple Watch activity rings.

John-Anthony has previously worked in editorial for collectable TCG websites and graduated from The University of Strathclyde where he won the Scottish Student Journalism Award for Website of the Year as Editor-in-Chief of his university paper. He is also an avid film geek, having previously written film reviews and received the Edinburgh International Film Festival Student Critics award in 2019. 

John-Anthony also loves to tinker with other non-Apple technology and enjoys playing around with game emulation and Linux on his Steam Deck.

In his spare time, John-Anthony can be found watching any sport under the sun from football to darts, taking the term “Lego house” far too literally as he runs out of space to display any more plastic bricks, or chilling on the couch with his French Bulldog, Kermit.