Little known iPhone feature saved this man’s life
A New Zealand man has shared how a feature on his iPhone saved his life after he fell through a five-metre crevasse while snowboarding alone.
Tim Blakey fell down the hole while snowboarding in Switzerland, with nobody seeing him disappear.
Taking to Instagram to share his story, Mr Blakey said he would never snowboard alone again after the incident.
“No matter how experienced you think you are, it is no joke,” he wrote.
“I was lured into a false sense of security which also led me to be very blasé about researching the areas I snowboard.”
Though his iPhone had just three percent of its battery left and he had very little reception, Mr Blakey was able to signal for help using a feature found on recent models.
By clicking the side button five times, Mr Blakey was able to activate the phone’s emergency function which makes an emergency call, alerts the owner’s emergency contacts, and sends them the location of the phone and its user.
“It very likely saved my life,” Mr Blakey said.
“Eight out of ten people I tell this story to aren’t aware it exists.”
The emergency alert resulted in Mr Blakey being tracked down and taken to safety by Swiss Rescue.
“The alternative to this has been keeping me up at night to say the least,” he said.
“To walk/hobble away from this relatively unharmed & make my flight back to London that evening is quite the headf***.”
He later shared a photo of himself with one of his rescuers and of the crevasse he was trapped in, along with a message of gratitude and caution for others to not make the same mistake he did.
“Michael and his team quite literally saved my life. I am still clueless as to how I will ever repay him and Swiss Rescue services,” Mr Blakey wrote.
“But I assure you I am working on it. Perhaps the first step is bringing awareness to the amazing job these guys do on the mountain and awareness to others to not be as careless as I was.
“17 years snowboarding, and the majority of those times spending a lot of time solo and off-piste. Never solo again.”
Image: @mrtimblakey (Instagram)