Man rescued in Arizona after Apple Watch notifies deputies of rollover crash

PHOENIX — Authorities in Arizona were able to rescue a man last week after his Apple Watch let dispatchers know he crashed his car.

The Yavapai County Sheriff’s Office received a text from the device on Dec. 28 around 10 p.m. alerting dispatchers of a crash on Castle Hot Springs Road near Lake Pleasant, YCSO spokesman Paul Wick told KTAR News 92.3 FM on Wednesday.

Deputies responded to the area and found the man’s vehicle rolled over. There was no sign of the man, so YCSO’s search and rescue team canvassed the area.

The team eventually found the man, who ended up walking about five miles down the road on his own. He hurt his leg in the crash but wasn’t seriously injured.

Wick isn’t sure when and how they’d have found the man in the remote area without the Apple Watch alert. The man told deputies he had been searching for help.

“It gets chilly out there. There’s animals out there,” Wick said. “He’d been walking for six, seven, eight hours, so there could be a lot of different scenarios if we didn’t track him down that could have happened.”

How often does YCSO get smart watch emergency alerts?

Wick said the incident is a good reminder that any contact YCSO receives should be taken seriously.

He added that it’s not YCSO’s first experience with emergency alerts coming from smart watch technology.

“We’ve had a couple instances with smart watches where we responded and we had a significant impact in the outcome because of that,” Wick said. “So we take every call and text seriously.”

KTAR News 92.3 FM’s Colton Krolak contributed to this report.

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