Apple’s Emergency SOS via satelliteavailable for the iPhone 14 series proves its usefulness once again when it potentially saved the lives of two women who got lost while attempting to find their way back through a detour. The incident occurred in British Columbia, and it is the first time that Apple’s emergency feature has been used in a province of Canada.

The lack of Apple’s Emergency SOS via satellitefeature on the iPhone 14 meant that their detour could have taken hundreds of additional kilometers

A pairof women reportedly gotlost on their trip back to Alberta on December23, according to Times Colonist. iMorereports that an accident had happened on a highway, which for obvious reasons, had to be closed, forcing the two to take a detour through the Holmes Forest Service Road. Unfortunately, the service road that they took was unplowed, and they eventually got stuck.

It was later found that the two women got lost approximately 20 kilometers down the road, with no Wi-Fi or cellular service available, and that is where the iPhone 14’s Emergency SOS via satellite feature came in handy. Dwight Yochim, a senior manager with British Columbia Search and Rescue, explains how it all happened below.

“Then it was basically a wall of snow and when they tried to get through it, they got stuck. There's no cell service there but one of them happened to have the new Apple phone that has the SOS in it and activated the SOS and to my knowledge, that's the first use of the SOS in British Columbia.”

The two people were 20 kilometers away from Highway 16 / Image Credits - Times Colonist

Yochim also talks about the consequences if any of the two women did not have an iPhone 14 on them. In short, they would have drifted away even further, which would take a long time to find the two travelers.

“If they didn't have this, what would have happened is eventually the family or their work would have said ‘hey, they didn't show up’ and so the search area would have been from wherever they were last seen to where they're supposed to be, and that could have been several hundred kilometres.”

When the iPhone 14 user activated the Emergency SOS via satellite, Yochim explained that the device sent a message to an Apple call center which then contacted Northern 911, which is a call center located in Canada. Shortly afterward, Northern 911 activates a call to emergency services in British Columbia, providing all the necessary information, including the person’s GPS location.

The practicality of having emergency services on the phone is invaluable, which is likely why Qualcomm introduced compatibilitywith its Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 SoC. As a result, the forthcoming Samsung Galaxy S23 series will get satellite communication capabilities, competing directly with the iPhone 14 in this regard.

News Source: Times Colonist