4-year-old boy uses Siri to call ambulance, saves mom's life
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}(File photo: Luke Peters demonstrates Siri, an application which uses voice recognition and detection on the iPhone 4S, outside the Apple store in Covent Garden, London October 14, 2011. (REUTERS/Suzanne Plunkett)
A 4-year-old boy in the U.K. saved his mom’s life after he used Siri to call an ambulance, telling emergency services that “she’s closing her eyes and she’s not breathing.”
The boy used his unconscious mother’s iPhone to contact police, according to a statement released this week by London’s Metropolitan Police. The 4-year-old unlocked the device by pressing her thumb to the phone and used Siri to call for help by dialing 999 for emergency services.
Police also released part of the boy’s heart-breaking call. “Can you go and get mummy?” asked a police call handler, to which the boy, named Roman, replied: “We can’t, she’s dead.”
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}AFTER BABY STOPS BREATHING, 'HEY SIRI' COMES TO THE RESCUE
The call handler calmly got Roman’s address and asked him to go and shake his mother. “She’s not waking up,” he replied. “Give her a good shake, shout out ‘mummy’!” said the call handler. The boy can be heard shouting “Mummy!” and then told the handler that “it didn’t work.”
Thirteen minutes after receiving the call, police arrived at the boy’s home in South London and forced entry to the house where they found Roman, his twin brother and younger brother with their unconscious mom.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Paramedics gave life-saving first aid to the mother, who regained consciousness and was taken to hospital.
SAMSUNG FINALLY HAS ITS OWN VERSION OF SIRI
The Metropolitan Police said that the incident, which took place March 7, highlights the importance of teaching children how to deal with emergencies.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}"Hearing this call brings home the importance of teaching your young child their home address and how to call police or emergency services in an emergency situation,” explained Chief Superintendent Ade Adelekan, from the Metropolitan Police’s Command and Control Unit, in the statement. "It's an amazing story and thanks to his quick thinking and by asking 'Siri' for help, this little boy saved his mum's life and it means she is still here and can be extremely proud of him and his brothers."
This is not the first time that Apple’s Siri voice assistant has come to the rescue.
Last year a mother in Australia thanked Apple after she used the “Hey Siri” feature to call an ambulance when her 1-year-old daughter stopped breathing. When the call was put through to emergency services, the mother was in a back-and-forth with dispatchers while she performed CPR on her baby. By the time the ambulance arrived the child was breathing again, the BBC reports.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}In 2015, Siri helped save the life of a man in Tennessee who used the voice assistant to call 911 after his truck fell on him.
Follow James Rogers on Twitter @jamesjrogers