A surge in unintentional 911 calls in Idaho has been blamed on Apple watch-wearing skiers and snowboarders, The Spokesman reports(Opens in a new window).
In a Facebook (Opens in a new window)post on Thursday, Bonner County Sheriff’s Office said nearly 30% of received 911 calls last Saturday were a result of “people enjoying activities on Schweitzer Mountain,” a popular ski resort in Idaho.
In the Facebook post, the Sheriff’s Office said its patrol deputies “treat each 911 call as an emergency until we can verify otherwise. These unintentional 911 calls can take emergency resources away from true emergencies somewhere else in the county.”
Schweitzer Mountain was reportedly unaware of the increase in calls, however. In an email to Spokesman, Sean Mirus, the resort’s marketing director said Thursday was not an “unusually active day on the mountain.”
In any case, it’s not the first time the fall detection technology has led to unintentional 911 calls from fallen skiers. Last month, 911 operators in Pitkin County, Colorado, received up to 20 accidental iPhone 14 calls a day, which required operators to divert resources from real emergencies.
According to Colorado dispatch services, not a single 911 call from iPhones on the state’s ski slopes in December had been about a real emergency.
The Fall Detection feature, which is found on iPhone 14, 14 Pros, and Apple Watches and is automatically on for those aged 55 and over, works(Opens in a new window) by displaying an alert that shows when a hard fall or car crash is detected. The fall detection feature turns on when a user is immobile for more than a minute, emergency services are immediately contacted.
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Meanwhile, The sister Crash Detection feature, which has been blamed for mistaking roller-coaster rides for car crashes(Opens in a new window), calls emergency services 20 seconds after a car crash has been detected.
On an Apple Watch Ultra, you can turn off alerts and automatic emergency calls stemming from the Crash Detection feature by opening the settings app, going to SOS > Crash Detection and then turning off Call After Severe Crash.
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