Teen driver lay dying as cops ignored his iPhone’s automatic 999 ‘crash call’

Police failed to attend a crash scene after George Dillon, 19, smashed his VW Golf into a tree near Southampton on May 18 last year which prompted his iPhone’s Crash Detection.

Despite the alert automatically sending a call to 999, officers failed to attend the scene which resulted in Dilon’s death later in hospital, an inquest heard.

A coroner has now called for a formal review within Hampshire Constabulary regarding their procedures and training and for other forces to take these automated emergency calls more seriously.

The iPhone’s feature was introduced by Apple in 2022 and allows its users to set their phone to automatically make the emergency call when there’s been a severe car accident detected.

Dillon’s iPhone immediately called the emergency services after the crash on Lee Lane in Romsey, warning a serious accident had taken place.

Police received this alert and attempted to call the number back but it went straight to voicemail with no follow up.

Henry Charles, assistant coroner for Hampshire, has appealed to officers that better ‘understanding, training and procedures’ must be put in place to ensure officers deal with automated calls when there’s ‘an indication of a collision where a risk to life may exist’.

According to a Prevention of Future Deaths report recently released, Hampshire Constabulary failed to send any officers as no distress was detected in the background call with no exact location.

Charles was told how the control room received the call at 10:26 pm and attempted to trace the phone’s owner but to no avail.

Dillon’s accident was only known about after a concerned member of the public rang 999 at 10:45 pm after seeing the crash while Dillon lay dying.

Charles said: “The evidence showed that false alarms from electronic devices are frequent and locations provided are often inaccurate.

“However, the iPhone’s serious crash detection feature was new at the time and required a better understanding and response strategy”.

He further wrote in his Prevention of Future Deaths report, released on September 6, that the lack of response by emergency services to the iPhone alert was a worrying issue which must be rectified immediately.

Both the iPhone and Apple Watches have a number of safety features including crash detection, satellite SOS and fall detections and have been described as ‘game changers’.

Charles has urged police to improve how these automated crash calls are handled so as to ensure this never happens again.