iPhone feature alerts authorities to serious crash on remote Gold Coast road

A critical care paramedic has spoken about how emergency services quickly found two seriously injured men trapped in their car which ended up far from the road in a remote location.

Two men who crashed their car on a remote Gold Coast road may have lain undiscovered for hours, their conditions rapidly deteriorating, were it not for a feature on their iPhone.

The pair’s vehicle left the road at Austinville shortly before 5am on Monday, hitting a tree and crashing about 10 metres down an embankment.

Shocked, disorientated and trapped in the mangled wreck of their vehicle, the men were unable to call for help, while their car was out of view of passing motorists.

However emergency services were quickly on scene after a crash detection feature on the driver’s iPhone alerted both his mother and emergency services.

Critical care paramedic Ollie Nichol. Picture: Glenn Campbell.

Critical care paramedic Ollie Nicol, who was among the ambulance officers to treat the pair, who are both in their twenties and from the Gold Coast suburb of Benowa.

He said they could gave lain undiscovered for hours were it not for the iPhone alert.

“The vehicle was off down an embankment so they were quite difficult to find. From what I’m told the police spent a bit of time trying to search for the car crash,” he said.

“ ... It was down in quite an isolated road where there wasn’t a lot of traffic, so they were quite lucky that the app had sent a notification to emergency services. Without it they probably would have been there for quite a long time before somebody found them.”

Mr Nicol said although the men were conscious and breathing they had both suffered head injuries in the accident, causing them to be disorientated.

They were also unable to get out of what remained of their vehicle, with one having to be cut free by firefighters before he could be treated and taken to hospital.

“They were both entrapped in their vehicle and quite unwell. Once they were extricated from the vehicle they both had quite significant head injuries,” he said.

“Both were transported to the Gold Coast University Hospital in a serious but stable condition.”

The car’s driver remains at hospital with suspected spinal injuries, while his passenger has since been released.

Acting Superintendent Scott Knowles. Picture: Keith Woods.

Apple products displaying crash detection alerts. Picture: Apple.

On Tuesday Acting Superintendent Scott Knowles from Gold Coast police said the outcome could have been more serious without the iPhone alert.

“At the moment our Forensic Crash Unit are investigating (what caused) the crash, but if it wasn’t for this application this might have had a different turn,” he said.

The Crash Detection feature was introduced by Apple into new watches and iPhones in late 2022. It works by alerting emergency services or nominated contacts when the device detects that a serious crash has occurred. A similar feature was introduced by Google on its Pixel smartphones in 2019.

The feature has been credited with saving multiple lives worldwide.

However people have previously been asked not to take devices with the feature onto rides at Gold Coast theme parks, with reports false alarms can be triggered on roller coasters.

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