Man survives Haiti earthquake thanks to iPhone
Tell me the PR folks at Apple aren’t high-fiving each other right now. In case you haven’t heard the news, a US filmmaker rescued in Haiti said he stayed alive for 66 hours thanks, in part, to a medial app he downloaded for his iPhone.
According to an AFP story, Dan Woolley is more than thankful he brought his iPhone to Haiti when the US filmmaker decided to shoot a documentary about poverty in Port-au-Prince.
When the 7.0-magnitude quake rocked the country last Tuesday, Woolley became trapped under rubble for 66 hours — nearly 3 days — before he was found and rescued by a French team. The man told MSNBC he survived, in part, due to a medical application on his iPhone.
Trapped in the ruins of his hotel with a fractured leg and head gash, Woolley said he looked up treatment of excessive bleeding and compound fracture on the $3.99 Jive Media Pocket First Aid and CPR.
“So I used my shirt to tie my leg and a sock on the back of my head. And later used it for other things, like to diagnose shock,” said Woolley.
Woolley said he also used the iPhone’s alarm to go off every 20 minutes to keep him from falling asleep.
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Other iPhone or iPod touch apps that might help during a disaster:
iEmergency + ($0.99): iEmergency + is an ICE (In Case of Emergency) Medical App designed to hold your medical information and ICE contacts in the event of an emergency or accident.
First Aid Pocket Guide ($0.99): Created by ambulance paramedics to help in medical emergency situations, thsi app provides simple to follow info and treatment guides, including an introduction to first aid, essentials of first aid, most common trauma and medical emergencies.
Get Help ($1.99): Do you always know where the closest Emergency Service facility is? Find a police station, hospital or a fire department in a hurry, with only two taps. This app will show you all pertinent map and contact information and the traffic between you and the emergency location you choose.
Know of any others? Feel free to leave comments below.
You dont need an iPhone app to tell you how to treat a fractured leg and head gash, its common sense that you just want to stop the bleeding by putting pressure on it, the rest is just about immobilization….come on..
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BS – iPhone is great but battery would have been dead in 1st day if he set alarm to go off every 20 minutes. I’m lucky if I go a day on mine and I have had 3 of them to date.
I was thinking the same thing… My battery NEVER lasts more than a day!
Although I found the battery life issue a little farfetched myself, there is a way he could have extended it much longer than the average user: if he could already see that no wireless signal was available, he could disable both the cell and wifi radios and modify the screen settings so it used as little power as possible. With these steps, just using the 20-min alarm, it’s quite likely he could have got as many as 5 days.
“Quite likely?”Did you write that with a straight face?…and maybe McGuyver was trapped next to him.
How could you even post this?!? Disgusting promo for the iphone and this column! Distance yourselves from this trashmag journalism!
WOW Where does he charge his iPhone??? I need some of that juice!!!
Would you believe,he had a pocket full of batteries?
He had 10 different iPhones, would you believe it, 10!!! … .. No? … How about 5?!! …. …. How about 2.5?….
Ha, great comments, guys.
I also thought about the battery issue…6 days!?….but then realized he must have used those apps within the first few hours of being trapped…
Marc
He was actually trapped for 66 hours which is almost 3 full days. It is likely that he could have had battery for that long if he wasn’t using internet or phone.
Come on guys… He must have downloaded the battery app, which we all know, gives you 10 days of battery life.
Look, my battery is 20% drained when I decide to sleep in and my alarm goes off around 20 times. In his case he had it go off every 20 minutes. The phone would be drained by at the latest the next day.
Then he probably slept for the last 5 days,and doesn’t remember.
You know another great thing a phone does.. makes phone calls.
After that much destruction I’d be amazed if there was any reception.
i for one am glad to hear this story of survival. i don’t care about the iPhone part. With so much death and destruction happening there it is good to hear these stories. Being trapped for 66 hours would be horrifying. i’m glad he made it.
I agree with you thank god he survived, don’t make such an issue of the iphone!!
if he could surf the web for apps, why didnt he just call someone/somehwere to alert people of his location??
he had the app before hand…..
Probably because Haiti is a third world country and he wouldn’t have known who to call?
thers a battery app???????????????????
I’m just glad he survived. About 1700 searchers and 60 dogs searching the rubble in Port-au-Prince found less than 130 trapped people still alive in the ten days before search was called off. He’s a lucky man…
I think I read an article yesterday about a 5 year old Haitian boy who borrowed his Dad’s Blackberry, downloaded a cardio-thoracic textbook, and performed open-heart surgery on his sister while she was trapped under a school bus…..
I mean really??…someone already alluded to this fact but, if he was trapped in a hotel, he would know his location and if he could download a medical app, then he could txt or email someone to come help him. I mean he was in a hotel and those are usually crawling around with other survivors / rescuers.
Was the cell system working down there during the first 3 days post event? I’m surprised if it was working, that it wasn’t overloaded and he was able to download anything at all.
I’m glad that he survived and is ok. I’m sorry that Haitians have had to endure this disaster- but do we really need to even post stories like these? Can’t we wait at least a few months to watch someone in a neck brace being interviewed on Oprah or Larry King telling us of their heroic, soon to be a made-for-TV movie, story of survival.
Honestly- it smells like someone wants some funding / sponsorship for their documentary they were filming.
……perhaps the article is a bit vague; I think the gist is he aready had the app on his phone.
Regardless, the end result, one less life lost in this disaster.
Disclaimer here: he’s my little brother. He used the app right away–already downloaded, no reception (he knew there might be need to use for him OR SOMEONE ELSE in this 4th world country). With a head injury/shock, you need to be awakened for first several hours or so–so batteries thankfully held out for time needed. More important: he survived, he’s grateful for his brains, his i-phone, the rescuers, the Haitian guy in the next elevator who encouraged him, and that his God (or some might say ‘fate’–whatever you believe) for reasons no one can know–decided this wasn’t his time to go. He’d be the last person to say he deserved to live more than any of the needy kids he went there to film. He still anxiously awaits word about the kids his org. serves and his co-worker. Anyway, Steve Jobs or whoever gets a marketing push from this story should consider donating any increase in sales (real or perceived) to the Haiti relief effort. Why are people so mean-spirited anyway? Have a heart; we all should.
If he was on airplane mode, the phone is not constantly searching for a signal and the battery will last indefinetly. Apps and alarm do not use up that much battery life. And CPR and first aid may be common sense to some ppl but not everyone hence why he downloaded the app in the first place. This is a great story of one mans survival tactics.
Airplane Mode will hopefully save you. Shuts off wi-fi. But you also have to shut off push notifications.
The Battery will last a long time.
I also purchased a portable power battery that,
the phone plugs in to and recharges quickly. Purchased on e bay from Hong
Kong. You can walk around with it. Its about 4 inches long and as wide as the i phone. Saved me many times.
The above is the truth- I check out airplane mode myself on my i phone.
Elinor
FAKE…
If it was a crackberry I would believe the article…
Hi gang,
Just a quick clarification…the iPhone did not last 6 days…the survivor probably used the medical app within a few minutes or hours after being trapped under the collapsed hotel to treat his wounds as best he could…and used the alarm that same day, too…
The downloaded apps he used do not require any cellular service or WiFi connectivity.
Apologies if there were any misunderstandings…
Best,
Marc