EMS having issues with false alerts from Apple watch’s SOS feature

Emergency service workers say accidental 911 calls from Apple Watches are happening frequently, and are wasting valuable emergency resources.

For example, first responders got a 911 call from a parking lot saying that someone had fallen and wasn’t responding, but when they showed up, nobody was to be found.

Because this is new technology, the Chiefs Association is starting to track to see how many false alerts the county EMS receives, and how many of those are accidental.

If we’re finding that we are having a lot of the calls that are false or that are unfounded, we”ll try to see if there’s ways to report to Apple or report to the system that this feature isn’t working well which is how it was intended,” said Tabatha Butcher, Collier County Chief.

Fire fighters say when they talked to Apple, the company told them sometimes with active people it will accidentally trigger the alert, but you should still be able to cancel it.

If you have any questions regarding the SOS on your watch, visit the Apple Support website here.