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A Byron Bay man rescued thanks to an Apple Watch
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I would not be here now without it.
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READ MORE: Apple Watch sales slump by one-fifth
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Byron Bay
A man has replicated the instance when his life was saved by his smartwatch after he was pulled away from shore by a powerful rip current.
Rick Shearman, who was 49 years old, had spent about 20 minutes body surfing at Tallow Beach near Byron Bay on a Saturday morning in July when he found himself directly in the path of several large breaking waves.
“As I approached the shoreline, I faced numerous large waves and ended up getting trapped in the break zone where I was pushed underwater. My breathing started to fail,” he recounted.
Today
.
‘I had endured too many hits to the head from the waves and had to leave that place.’
Since he had spent his childhood surfing in the Northern Rivers area, he understood that panicking was unwise and that he should allow the current to carry him past the waves instead.
Seeing the waves were too big to attempt returning to land, he looked at his Apple Watch and succeeded in activating its emergency SOS function.
At this juncture, he was 1.6 kilometers away from the coast.
Within minutes, a team from
Westpac
The rescue helicopter service took flight, heading towards the single swimmer.
The harrowing rescue has now been re-enacted over audio of the rescue call in a new Apple ad titled: ‘Emergency SOS on Apple Watch: Rick’s Rescue’.
‘I’m in very rough seas. I was bodysurfing but I’ve been sucked right out to sea in Byron Bay,’ he told a police emergency hotline.
‘The waves are enormous. My muscles are seizing up. I continue swimming. I am completely exhausted.’
He added: ‘Mate, I’m so far out, I can’t see the beach. I’m calling from my Apple Watch.’
The Emergency SOS feature has been part of the Apple Watch lineup since the release of the Series Two model in 2016.
Mr. Shearman was not the initial person to own an Apple Watch who had this issue.
saved by the technology
.
In 2023, Daniel Auld from Sydney dialed for emergency medical help after he received a message indicating that his senior father had an abnormally low heartbeat.
Healthcare professionals verified that he was suffering from heart failure and would have succumbed later that night if he hadn’t gotten medical care.
Father-of-three Alan Tindall slipped and was knocked unconscious when he hit his head on the barbell of his truck in Lake Macquarie in 2024.
Thanks to his Apple Watch’s feature for detecting falls, he
awoke to the voice of an emergency response unit coming from his watch’s speaker.
He was hurriedly taken to the hospital where he received treatment for a fractured spine and severe hemorrhaging.
Mr. Shearman has recently initiated a fundraising campaign for the Westpac Rescue Helicopter Services and plans to walk 36 kilometers from Byron to Ballina on May 3rd.
‘Having grown up surfing in Byron, I am in the water daily,’ he wrote on the
fundraiser page
.
‘I am incredibly self-assured when it comes to swimming and surfing, so I never could have envisioned finding myself needing a rescue helicopter out in the waves.’
‘It’s humbling to think that I wouldn’t be alive today without it.’
He mentioned that over the past few years, both his mother and brother-in-law have received help from the rescue helicopter as well.
Mr. Shearman has thus far collected $375 out of his $500 target.
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