Apple released a new commercial this month in which a bodysurfer is rescued in the open ocean thanks to an SOS feature on the company’s smartwatch. It’s a true story, retelling how an Australian bodysurfer found himself sucked out to sea and used the feature out of desperation.
“I’m in very rough seas,” Rick Shearman tells a police emergency dispatcher. “I was bodysurfing but I got sucked right out to sea in Byron Bay. The swell is so big, I’m cramping up. I’m swimming. I’m too tired.”
Speaking to 9 News Australia, Shearman recalled he’d only been out about 15 minutes when he noticed the swell was picking up and he found himself further and further away from shore. He assumed he’d be swimming for at least an hour and was surprised to find that his emergency call actually went through. Shearman ended up only having to wait about 20 minutes, he estimates, instead of the hour he was dreading. Emergency response stayed on the call with him while waiting for rescuers to arrive with a helicopter and a winch. They scooped him up a little more than 1.5 kilometers out to sea, and just like that, Apple had some PR it couldn’t pass up.
“To Apple’s credit, they were insistent on the story remaining true to my story,” he says.
