We can envision the screaming tabloid headlines now: "iPHONE SAVED MY LIFE." (We're pretty sure Apple has the good sense not to run an ad like that.) But the bottom line is, an iPhone helped a man trapped in the rubble for three days after earthquake in Haiti treat his own injuries.
Filmmaker Dan Woolley was in a Port-au-Prince hotel working on a documentary about Haitian poverty when the earthquake hit Jan. 12. The building collapsed in the wake of the 7.0-magnitude quake, leaving Woolley with a broken leg and with blood pouring out of a head wound. Dazed but not fazed, he whipped out his iPhone and pulled up the Jive Media Pocket First Aid & CPR app to find out how to treat a compound fracture and heavy bleeding.
"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," Woolley told MSNBC. Woolley also set the iPhone's alarm to go off every 20 minutes to make sure he stayed awake in case rescuers showed up. Some 66 hours after the quake, he was pulled out of the rubble.
For more on this harrowing tale:
- read this Agence France-Presse story, via the Montreal Gazette.