Single dad paralyzed in car crash credits Apple’s Siri with saving his life
A Nevada man is crediting Apple’s Siri with saving his life after he crashed his car and was paralyzed inside.
Single dad Nate Felix, of Pahrump, Nevada, was offroading in the desert with his dog when his Jeep flipped over on a dry lake bed on December 7, 2018.
He told KSNV that he tried to crawl out from under the Jeep, but his ‘body was paralyzed’ and he wasn’t even able to lift up his head.
Felix said that he was pinned inside the car and that he was in pain at the time.
‘I had my dog lay next to me, trying to figure if I could stay warm for the night, but after ten minutes of that I realized there was no way I would be able to stay warm enough,’ Felix said. Which is when he remembered his Siri-enabled iphone.
Although he didn’t know where inside the car it was, he said he started screaming at it.
‘I had no idea where my phone was, so I yelled, “Hey Siri, call so-and-so, call so-andso”, going through anyone I could think of,’ Felix said, noting that ‘It didn’t work out, cannot connect, cannot connect’ was all he heard.
Finally, Felix asked the Apple virtual assistant to call emergency services for him.
‘So, I said, “Hey Siri, call 911”, and it said, “Connecting,”’ Felix recalled.
Felix said he was thinking of his 10-year-old daughter, Dallis, during that time.
‘Unfortunately, she lost her mom to cancer and I got to get home,’ he said.
The Pahrump Valley Firerescue Services responded to Siri’s call and arrived on the scene to pry Felix out of the jeep with the jaws of life.
The first responders put Felix on a backboard and he was then flown to the hospital where he remained for four days before being allowed to go back home.
Felix said that he broke two vertebrae during the incident and that they happened to have been on the nerve endings in his arms and hands, so it now feels like those parts of his body are on fire.
Felix is now wheelchair bound with a broken neck, but he said that he’s ‘hopefully getting better, day by day.’
Rescuers said that if Siri hadn’t been able to dial 911 and Felix was stuck in the desert overnight, he would likely have died from hypothermia.
Felix’s friend has set up a Gofundme page to help with his bills and take care of Dallis during the estimated six or more months that Felix will be out of work.