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A hiker trying to see Swiss Falls took a wrong turn in the Angeles National Forest Sunday night and had to be rescued.
The man activated the emergency transponder function on his iPhone 14 and contacted authorities.
Just before 8 p.m., volunteer rescue teams were alerted to a missing hiker near the Arroyo Seco Research Foundation, which is adjacent to NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
It took volunteer Mike Lium and his trainees about an hour and a half to find the hikers, who were communicating with them using satellite text messages and telling them to stay where they were.
After the discovery, rescuers and hikers spent another two hours, sometimes knee-deep in water, extracting the man from the forest to safety.
This is not the first time rescuers have been contacted by a missing or injured person using the safety feature.
“We were coming down this little hill,” said Juana Reyes, who seriously injured her ankle in Trail Canyon while visiting a friend in Los Angeles in June 2023.
After noticing poor cell phone coverage, Reyes noticed that the SOS feature on his Apple smartphone automatically activated and notified first responders.
KTLA’s Rich DeMuro, host of Tech Smart, said Apple’s Emergency SOS Satellite feature introduced with the iPhone 14 allows users to connect to emergency services via text message even when there is no cell phone or wireless signal. Stated. This technology automatically activates when you try to send a text message or call 911.
“For example, if an accident or a serious fall occurs, we have automatic crash or fall technology that can sense that and issue an automatic alert,” said Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department Sgt. John Gilbert told KTLA.
Sergeant Gilbert coordinated the search and rescue team that first contacted Reyes, who was later airlifted to safety.
In December, satellite SOS technology helped locate two victims of a car crash in the Angeles National Forest that plunged about 300 feet off a cliff.
“Under the old technology, no one would have known they were there,” Gilbert said of the incident. “They wouldn’t have had a way to call out.”
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