There are quite a few criticisms hurled at Apple’s AirPods.
The high-tech wireless headphones are often derided for being expensive (a cursory glance at Apple’s store page shows the most recent “pro” versions to be $249), for failing to hold a charge, for quality issues, and for poor repairability issues often tied to allegations of planned obsolescence.
Those criticisms may very well be true, and not just a matter of broader anti-Apple sentiment.
But did you know that those fancy pieces of tech could also potentially save your life?
According to the Australian Broadcasting Company, those expensive earbuds apparently played a critical role in saving the life of Jake McCollum.
7 News reported that 18-year-old McCollum was hiking Mount Walsh in Biggenden, Australia, when he took a nasty — and precipitous — fall.
McCollum fell 80 meters (roughly 262 feet) to what even the teenager assumed was his doom.
“The wind was knocked out of me and I remember thinking it was probably all over for me,” McCollum said.
He added, “I didn’t really think it was survivable.”
McCollum suffered severe injuries, including a fractured spine, broken ribs, internal bleeding, and a head injury.
Thankfully for him, he happened to have two pieces of tech nearby that saved his life — not including his phone, which was destroyed in the fall.
The first was a device that his parents smartly implored him to take.
McCollum was able to activate a personal locator beacon, which alerted authorities.
The other piece of tech were his AirPods, which his parents frantically called after the beacon triggered authorities to reach out to them.
“I heard really, really faintly: ‘Mum, I’m hurt really bad,’” McCollum’s mother recalled.
She stayed on the phone during the entire 90-minute drive that the parents took to reach the general area where their son had fallen.
A five-hour search via helicopter ultimately found the badly injured McCollum, who was successfully rescued. (And yes, the mother said the earbuds played an outsized role in the rescue.)
“We were surprised he was alive, given the story we’d been told,” a flight paramedic said. “So, we were very relieved to find him awake, conscious and talking.”
Advertise with The Western Journal and reach millions of highly engaged readers, while supporting our work. Advertise Today.
