Apple Watch SOS Alert Saves Skiers After Falling 1,000 Feet Down A Mountain

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About a week ago, a sheriff's office in Chelan County, Washington, received an SOS alert via satellite. The notification came from an Apple Watch belonging to a backcountry skier and alert data indicated that the skier had fallen 1,000 feet near Steven's Pass Ski Area and that the person sustained a leg injury. Upon arrival, the air rescue team got slightly more than they bargained for, but thanks to their professionalism, all parties made it home safely.


On January 22, the Chelan County Sheriff's Office received an emergency SOS from a backcountry skier. The alert had come from the skier's Apple Watch via satellite with the only information being the the skier had fallen 1,000 ft and sustained a leg injury. The sheriff's office requested the help of the King County Sheriff Air Support to attempt an air assessment and rescue. The video shared by air support unit above—complete with dramatic intro—showed how the rescue went down (and up).

The rescue was made just after sunset and with the aid of infra-red cameras, you can see that conditions at the accident site were gratefully manageable—no storms, heavy winds, or bad terrain. The crew finds three stranded skiers and at some point, the pilot remarks that altitude where the skiers were at was much higher than expected, implying that the given Apple Watch altitude was off, which usually tends to be the case with GPS anyway.

When one of the rescue member descends to the skiers, it was found that not one, but two of the skiers suffered injuries. With the first skier secured and hoisted up into the helicopter, one of the rescue members can be heard reporting that "we have a second patient with a knee injury that’s still down there."

It was assessed that the skier could not walk, thus the decision was made to helivac all three skiers down the mountain for receive medical attention.

All said, a big shoutout to the rescuers here; these kinds of rescues occur more often than is reported in the news and these men and women continue to perform their duties with passion and professionalism. In fact, you probably won't be reading about this if it weren't for the Apple Watch attribute.