It was a 130-150 feet slip into a deep valley. First, 17-year-old Smit Metha hit a tree and then both his ankles slammed against a stone, dislocating them. For the next few hours he was stuck to a tree and a rock, without a phone. What he did was rely on his Apple Watch to make a call.
Every year, new cases surface of how the Apple Watch is saving lives. Here’s the story of a student who is studying medicine. Smit is from Raigad and is studying in Pune. Holidays are not something he often gets to experience but on July 11 he had a moment to relax with three friends and they decided to go on a trek to Visapur Fort in Lonavala.
On the way back, it was raining heavily and the tracks were muddy. It was also a trip for which the four friends decided to carry just two bags amongst them. Smit’s phone was inside one of those bags.
Things went drastically wrong when the 17-year-old slipped into the valley but his friends didn’t notice his absence for some time. To make matters worse, the young man’s voice couldn’t rise over the din of heavy rainfall.
File picture of Apple Watch Series 8.
Picture: The Telegraph“First I struck a tree, which slowed me down and then I hit a stone, following which both ankles were dislocated. I didn’t have my phone on me because we had decided to carry two bags amongst the four of us. All I had on me was the cellular version of the Apple Watch 7. Luckily, the Watch could latch on to the network and I could call using the Watch. I first called my parents and then my friends,” the student told The Telegraph.
Once he connected with his friends, he provided them his location, so they could call paramedics. At the same time, his friends came across two other trekkers who helped rescue Smit.
“One of the trekkers managed to cut the tree and came towards me. Finally, the five of them helped me out. When they were taking me to a safe zone, the stone and tree I was stuck to gave away. So it was a very lucky escape,” he said.
Smit’s friends and fellow trekkers during the rescue mission
But the nightmare wasn’t over for him. First he was taken to the closest village, which was 1.5 kms away and then shifted to a hospital in Pune. “The legs were swollen, so the surgery could take place only on July 16. Then I was put on bed rest and discharged on August 7. There was some delay in attending to the original wound because it took time to reach the hospital. So there were complications in the form of an infection. I was once again admitted to a hospital and treated from August 12 to 19. I was put on bed rest till October 13. Then a physiotherapist started helping me,” he said.
Now that he is on the mend, Smit recently emailed Apple CEO Tim Cook, thanking him for the work that is being done on the Apple Watch.
Apple is known for working with a number of medical institutions around the world and the Apple Watch helps patients monitor heart-related and other medical problems. Also important are the fall detection feature as well as nightly wrist temperature, a function that was introduced with the latest Apple Watch Series 8.
In fact, there are three smartwatches from Apple this year. Watch Series 8 is the middle child while the most powerful one is called Apple Watch Ultra while the youngest member is Apple Watch SE. The most powerful member has all the bells and whistles that will make any endurance sport enthusiast happy but that’s something not everyone needs. The Watch SE has all the big functions minus always-on and blood oxygen saturation because many don’t care about those features. It’s the Watch Series 8 that has a good balance of features that suit a large audience.
Besides checking temperature, the big changes involve improvements on the gyroscope and accelerometer. It basically means the Series 8 can now detect if the wearer has been in a severe car crash. These health and safety features make a smartwatch practical. The Compass app has been overhauled. You can drop waypoints or basically little pins marking your location and you can customise the label and colour of these pins so you can sort them easily. There is also the backtrack feature. Start tracking your steps which you can use to get back to wherever you started. I want to see this integrated with Maps in the future.
