Teen saved by Life360 app after hitting cow at 100km/h on Bruce Highway, Alligator Creek

An apprentice mechanic is lucky to be alive after smashing into a cow at 100km/h and rolling his car. But thanks to an app, help was right around the corner.

A teenage apprentice is lucky to be alive after smashing into a cow at 100km h, rolling his car into a gulley. But thanks to an app, help was right around the corner.

A teenage apprentice is looking at a long road to recovery after “he lost all visibility” coming around a blind corner at 100km per hour in pitch black, smashing into a cow.

The 18 year-old Sarina man was coming home when he crashed into the escaped livestock and rolled his ute off the Bruce Hwy in Alligator Creek just before 8pm on Wednesday.

“As the cow came up and I hit it, I lost all visibility because of the airbags,” he said.

The extent of damage after the large ute crashed and rolled off the Hwy.

“The cow ran up on the road just prior to hitting it,” his dad said.

The cow did not survive the accident and the farm had been notified of the incident by the family.

Police, paramedics and family members were alerted of the incident thanks to family tracking application called Life360, a phone tracking service, which detected the serious crash.

“He didn’t know where his phone was,” his mother said.

The young 18-year-old driver was able to free himself despite not knowing “where his brain was” after the crash.

“We pay a subscription and it’s got crash detection, so Life360 actually rang everybody in the family circle that he had crashed.”

The app was at the heart of a major search for missing Gin Gin teen Pheobe Bishop with her mother Kylie Johnson urging parents to download Life360, which was manually switched off at the time the 17-year-old went missing.

Despite his injuries, the young mechanic apprentice was able to free himself from the wreckage and was later taken to Mackay Base Hospital in a stable condition.

Scans later revealed he suffered a fractured L4 vertebrae which would put him in a back brace for up to six to 12 weeks before rehab begins.

The ute rolled off the Hwy and into a gulley beside the road.

“I do now have too take time off work because of it...not being able to bend over and what not,” he said.

His shaken parents have also taken the day off work but are thankful the worst case scenario was avoided.

“We’ve all been thankful that he is alive,” they said.

“We were a bit emotional.

“We want to thanks everyone that stopped and helped him and all the emergency services and hospital staff,” they said.