New cellphone feature credited with saving Ont. driver's life

Hannah Ralph is recovering in the ICU following a crash that sent her to hospital with life-threatening injuries, and her family is crediting a new feature on her cellphone for a quick emergency response.

The 21-year-old Hamilton, Ont. native was driving in a rural area near Flesherton, a small community between Owen Sound and Shelburne, when she was involved in a serious collision on Aug. 5.

Her family says they were alerted to the incident by the crash detection system on Ralph’s iPhone.

"It's something that hopefully more people can get on their phones and make use of,” Ralph’s cousin Alison Jones said.

The feature comes with newer model phones.

Ralph’s family fears if she didn’t have it on her phone, she may not have been found by emergency responders right away.

“I believe it's automatic if you have an iPhone 14, but you do have to input your emergency contacts, and that was great because right away, Grace [Ralph's emergency contact] knew where Hannah was," Jones said.

The crash happened on a rural road near Flesherton, Ont. (Google Maps)

According to her family, the first responders at the scene expressed shock at how quickly she had been found.

“The tow truck driver told me that he just couldn’t believe that Hannah had been found so quickly. Normally it would take potentially hours for somebody to be found after an accident,” Jones said.

"She had a lot of blood loss, and she was able to receive the lifesaving blood transfusions at Markdale [Hospital],” Jones said.

Jones noted the feature means the crash was recorded, and the family did not have to potentially wait hours for someone to drive by and report the collision.

It meant Ralph’s emergency contact was able to immediately notify first responders of where she was.

Her boyfriend, Mackenzie Attridge, said he got a call from police, but wasn’t aware of the extent of her injuries at the time.

"I got a call from a police officer that was on the scene, and that's how I found out what happened,” Attridge said.

TECH EXPERT WEIGHS IN ON FEATURE

One technology expert says the feature is an example of how far emergency alert systems have come.

"The latest Google phones, and iPhone in this case, are equipped with quite a significant improvement in the emergency preparedness, for example, the GPS feature,” Helen Chen, professor at the University of Waterloo Cheriton School of Computer Science said.

"I'm very happy to know that this kind of a new feature, in this case, proved to be very useful.”

Ralph is recovering in the ICU at Sunnybrook Hospital. (Submitted)

ROAD TO RECOVERY

Meanwhile, as Ralph faces a long road to recovery, including healing from multiple breaks in her neck, pelvis, legs, arms and face, there have been signs of hope.

"She had a lot of complications with her injuries, and we weren't seeing signs of neurological response, but then, two or three days ago, we started seeing her eyes open, and she was able to focus; she was able to gesture a little bit,” Jones said.

The family says the community support has been greatly appreciated during a very difficult time.

A family friend started a GoFundMe to support her recovering, which has already raised over $22,000 for her medical bills.