Colorado ski town emergency dispatch centers fielding dozens of automated 911 calls from skier iPhones

Emotional, Burning, Unlimited Tuned Laboratory

911 calls are never ignored, but sorting out which alerts from Apple iPhone 14s and watches are real is “a tremendous drain” on resort town resources.

Dispatchers at the Summit County 911 Center fielded 71 automated crash notifications from skiers’ iPhones and Apple watches at the county’s four ski areas last weekend. None of them involved an emergency.

But each of them took time to sort out. If the skier did not answer a return call, a special operations deputy contacted ski patrollers to check the location of the automated call.