iPhone 14 Saves Man's Life After He Plummeted 400 Feet Into Canyon

A man was saved by his iPhone 14's emergency features on Friday evening after he drove his car off a cliff and plummeted 400 feet into a canyon in the Mount Wilson area near Los Angeles, according to the local CBS affiliate.

The two iPhone 14 features that helped to save the man's life were Crash Detection and Emergency SOS via satellite. First, the iPhone automatically detected a severe car crash. Second, the device automatically sent a text message to an emergency relay center via satellite connection, since the crash site was outside of the range of cellular and Wi-Fi coverage. The message included precise location information, and a local search and rescue team was able to find and rescue the man with use of a helicopter.

"He was 400 feet down in a canyon with virtually no way out," said Steve Goldsworthy, Rescue Operations Leader at Montrose Search and Rescue. "So, who knows when, or if, we would've located him." Another member of the search and rescue team said the man likely would have bled out had he not been rescued in a timely manner.

Crash Detection is enabled by default on all iPhone 14 models. In the U.S., Emergency SOS via satellite requires an iPhone 14 updated to iOS 16.1 or later.