{"id":127595,"date":"2022-08-27T18:01:17","date_gmt":"2022-08-27T18:01:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/appleinsider.com\/articles\/22\/08\/27\/paralyzed-mountain-biker-credits-apple-watch-with-saving-his-life?utm_medium=rss"},"modified":"2022-08-27T18:01:17","modified_gmt":"2022-08-27T18:01:17","slug":"paralyzed-mountain-biker-credits-apple-watch-with-saving-his-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/2022\/08\/27\/paralyzed-mountain-biker-credits-apple-watch-with-saving-his-life\/","title":{"rendered":"Paralyzed mountain biker credits Apple Watch with saving his life"},"content":{"rendered":"
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AppleInsider is supported by its audience and may earn commission as an Amazon Associate and affiliate partner on qualifying purchases. These affiliate partnerships do not influence our editorial content. <\/em> <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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A mountain biker says an Apple Watch<\/a> helped save his life, enabling him to get assistance after an accident left him a quadriplegic. <\/p>\n

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A keen mountain bike rider, Ryan McConnaughey of Spring Valley, California, was a regular visitor to trails in Jamul. However, one daily ride in April involved an accident that would change his life. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Recounting the incident to<\/a> 10News San Diego<\/em>, McConnaughey explains the accident took place about 40 minutes into the evening ride. “It was a steep section. My bicycle went forward, and I went over the handlebars, headfirst into the ground,” he said. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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After the impact to his helmet-protected head, the rider ended up on his back, and immediately knew that it was a serious issue. “I didn’t have movement from my neck down,” he explains. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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“I knew for sure that I need to get medical attention as quickly as possible. My brain kind of kicked into survival mode,” he adds. Realizing his iPhone<\/a> was in his backpack and unreachable, McConnaughey remembered “I’m wearing my watch.” <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Primarily used by the rider as a fitness tracker, he used the Apple Watch to ask Siri<\/a> to call a friend who knew his location. Both McConaughey and his friend called 911 for assistance, with the rider then placing a call to his girlfriend’s voicemail. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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“Didn’t know what was going to happen. Just wanted to say goodbye,” he told his girlfriend in the three-minute message. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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After being located and airlifted to hospital, several surgeries to his shattered vertebrae in his neck led to him being diagnosed a quadriplegic. After months at a spinal cord rehabilitation facility in Colorado, McConnaughey has since returned home. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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“That watch saved my life. No doubt about it. No way anybody would have found me. I never would have thought I’d be using an Apple Watch to make a life-saving phone call,” McConnaughey concludes. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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McConnaughey’s story is the latest to proclaim the Apple Watch had a hand in saving lives. In January, an Apple Watch placed an automatic emergency call to police in Hermosa Beach, after a man took a hard fall off an electric bike<\/a>, while in September 2021, it summoned an ambulance for a man in Singapore following a hit-and-run incident<\/a>. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

AppleInsider is supported by its audience and may earn commission as an Amazon Associate and affiliate partner on qualifying purchases. These affiliate partnerships do not influence our editorial content. A mountain biker says an Apple Watch helped save his life, enabling him to get assistance after an accident left him a quadriplegic. A keen mountain […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":127596,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-127595","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-apple-insider"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127595","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=127595"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127595\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/127596"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=127595"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=127595"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=127595"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}