By Mary O’KEEFE

Montrose Search and Rescue (MSAR) team members have often searched for days, sometimes years, for a vehicle that has gone over the side of the road. Those who are lucky enough to survive this type of accident often find they have no cellphone service and many times are too injured to hike up to the road to call for help. Even if there were a witness to the accident it may take hours to get back into an area that provides cell service. This circumstance is well known to people who live along the foothills and is what makes the rescue of Tuesday, Dec. 13 even more meaningful.

“When the car went over the side, the [victim’s] cellphone indicated there was a heavy impact,” said Sgt. John Gilbert, Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Dept. (LASD) –Crescenta Valley Station.

“The [LASD] CV desk received a call from Apple Emergency Center,” said Steve Goldsworthy, technology director, MSAR for LASD.

The call came into the CV Station about 2 p.m. and although car over-the-side calls are not uncommon in the Angeles National Forest, the unusual thing about this call was that it originated from new satellite technology that went live on Nov. 15.

It is a combination of two technologies: a crash–detection on the cellphone that is triggered when there has been a crash and the technology that places a 9-1-1 call that indicates there is no cell service in the area of the crash. The phone then accesses satellite technology.

“It is different from other [technology],” Goldsworthy said. “Others use cellular networks.”

But in areas like ANF there are many places where the network is not available.

“In a large part of the mountains there is no cellphone service so this [iPhone 14] has a unique ability [over] standard cellphone [networks by connecting] to a constellation of satellites,” Goldsworthy said, adding, “It allows texting only.”

So on Dec. 13 the Apple Emergency Center received information of the crash, received via satellite, indicating the victims were out of cell service range. The Center was able to get the longitude and latitude of the distress, pinpointing it in Monkey Canyon, then contacted the appropriate emergency response unit, which was LASD MSAR, which then deployed its team members and was able to rescue the victims who, fortunately, reported only minor injuries.

Gilbert said the team has responded to this particular area in the past and had a very different outcome.

“This particular incident was not witnessed, so there were no secondary calls from observers,” Goldsworthy said. “It was miraculous that they survived and were able to crawl out of the vehicle.”

He added the team has responded in the past to multiple fatalities in this area, and the vehicle on Tuesday had landed upside down hundreds of feet over the side.

“Without this technology and because the victims did not have the ability to hike out, they could have been there trapped in the vehicle for days,” he said.