Apple’s Emergency SOS via satellite saves two women stranded in Canada

SAN FRANCISCO: Tech giant Apple's Emergency SOS via satellite feature on iPhone has helped to save two women who were stranded in Canadian Province 'British Columbia' (BC).

The women found that a highway was closed because of an accident while they were returning to Alberta, Canada, so they chose to take the Holmes Forest Service Road after using Google Maps to find an alternate route, reports AppleInsider.

They eventually arrived at the spot where the grader had stopped, but the road was only partially ploughed.

"Then it was basically a wall of snow and when they tried to get through it, they got stuck," explained Dwight Yochim, senior manager with BC Search and Rescue.

Yochim also said that they were about 12 miles down the road, stuck in the snow without knowing where they were, and out of cell service range.

"There's no cell service there but one of them happened to have the new Apple phone that has the SOS in it and activated the SOS and to my knowledge, that's the first use of the SOS in British Columbia," he mentioned.

Following the women's use of the feature, the RCMP and Robson Valley Search and Rescue used the GPS location to create a plan of operation, determine what happened and come to the conclusion that the women might have taken the logging road.

"They found them, pulled their vehicle out and got them turned around and back on the way," said Yochim.

"It's the kind of thing that it potentially may have saved their life." Moreover, he mentioned that without Emergency SOS, it might have taken the team over a week to find the women, the report said.