iPhone 14 Saves Man's Life After He Plummeted 400 Feet Into Canyon - MacRumorsOpen MenuShow RoundupsShow Forums menuVisit ForumsOpen Sidebar
Skip to Content

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.

iPhone 14 Car Crash Detection
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.

Popular Stories

iPhone 18 Pro Deep Red Feature

iPhone 18 Pro Launching Later This Year With These 12 New Features

Wednesday March 18, 2026 7:39 am PDT by
While the iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max are not expected to launch for another six months or so, there are already plenty of rumors about the devices. It was initially reported that the iPhone 18 Pro models would have fully under-screen Face ID, with only a front camera visible in the top-left corner of the screen. However, the latest rumors indicate that only one Face ID component...
imac video apple feature

Apple Released Yet Another New Product Today

Friday March 20, 2026 2:39 pm PDT by
Apple has unveiled a whopping nine new products so far this March, including an iPhone 17e, iPad Air models with the M4 chip, MacBook Air models with the M5 chip, MacBook Pro models with M5 Pro and M5 Max chips, the all-new MacBook Neo, an updated Studio Display, a higher-end Studio Display XDR, AirPods Max 2, and now the Nike Powerbeats Pro 2. iPhone 17e features the same overall design as...
ios 26 4 yellow

Here Are Apple's Release Notes for iOS 26.4

Wednesday March 18, 2026 11:56 am PDT by
Apple provided developers and public beta testers with the release candidate versions of iOS 26.4 and iPadOS 26.4, which means we're going to see a public launch as soon as next week. The RC versions of the software include Apple's official release notes, giving us final details on what's included in the update. Apple Music - Playlist Playground (beta) generates a playlist from your...

Top Rated Comments

macsplusmacs Avatar
35 months ago
Another sheriff said due to trees / brush and it being night and the time of day, it could have taken a helicopter 10 hours.

10 freaking hours to find him.

Kudos to the apple team that led this effort.
Score: 32 Votes (Like | Disagree)
35 months ago
Conveniently forgot to mention he fell down precisely because he was looking at his iPhone 14
Score: 27 Votes (Like | Disagree)
TheYayAreaLiving 🎗️ Avatar
35 months ago
Excellent news! Savings lives over here.

Only iPhone is capable of doing this. No other smartphone exists in this world that can report crash detection as the iPhone 14.
Score: 19 Votes (Like | Disagree)
himanshumodi Avatar
35 months ago
Forget the phone. What car was he driving? Surviving a 400 ft drop, and surviving, feels like a solid car!
Score: 16 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Apple Fan 2008 Avatar
35 months ago
Cue the flood of negative comments
Score: 14 Votes (Like | Disagree)
35 months ago

Note. Remember to turn phone off, first.
What? Lovely kind comment when a man nearly died. What a lovely human you must be.
Score: 11 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Related Apple News: Entertainment | Mac | South Africa | Iphone | Health