SUAMICO, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) – The Suamico Fire Department is seeing an uptick in false emergency calls from iPhones, and officials say it comes from the “crash detection” feature on newer devices.
14th generation and newer iPhones, along with 8th generation and newer Apple Watches, automatically call emergency services when it detects what it believes to be a crash.
Suamico Fire tells FOX 11 the feature is the cause of a recent increase in false calls.
Five calls in the past two weeks have brought officials out to the scene of a reported crash, only for them to discover a lost phone on the road.
“They do work. I mean, we have gone on crashes that actually are legit,” explained Fire Chief Joe Bertler. “We had one a month ago that was an iPhone crash notification that someone was way off in the woods and we happened to find them. But about 80% of the time, we are going on calls that are from the phones that are just phone drops.”
FOX 11 has plans to speak with Brown County Dispatch Wednesday to learn more about how you can prevent these false reports.
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