A group of four women stranded on a glacier during a wildfire were rescued after they successfully sent a text to emergency services using Apple’s Emergency SOS function for iPhone.
The women were adventuring in the West Kootenay region of British Columbia, Canada last week, enjoying a spot of leisurely camping.
According to reports, the wind picked up and the women found embers falling onto their tent, a remnant of a blazing wildfire spreading nearby. The women “ran for their lives” but soon became stranded. Fortunately, one quick-thinking friend was able to send a text via Apple Emergency SOS on iPhone, alerting search and rescue to their plight.
Emergency SOS saves a life
The group told CBC they were aware of the wildfire dangers and that the air was “kind of thick,” but they chose to press on, hiking to their camp before setting up and eating dinner.
As night fell, the hikers realized they had to leave, but decided to wait until morning to reassess. “But then the sun just never came. Even at 5:45 a.m., it was super dark because of the smoke we've been told. And the ashes were [now] red. It was like fire ashes,” one of the women said.
The vital SOS ping meant search and rescue were able to pinpoint the women. “We were just able to sneak over a ridge and found them exactly where the cellphone ping said they were, which is really unusual and very satisfying,” Mark Jennings-Bates of Kaslo Search and Rescue said. He described the conditions as “like a war zone” and said the team was “very fortunate” to get a helicopter to the location, revealing they nearly had to abandon the attempt.
Without the precision accuracy of Emergency SOS, the women may have been much harder to find and the outcome of the story could have been much different.
Emergency SOS is available on all of Apple’s best iPhones including the iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Pro, which is expected to be replaced in September. Apple is weeks away from unveiling the new iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Pro, but Emergency SOS is a given for both models.
