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How Your Cell Phone Could Save Your Life

Everyone has a cell phone these days. Sure, geeks love their mobile devices, but they also serve very practical purposes that have all but eliminated the need for landlines, pagers, or watches. Plus, they can save your life.

Aside from its classic 911-dialing abilities, your cell phone is equipped to save your life in a cornucopia of life-threatening situations. Don't believe me? Check out the real life-saving situations that these brave cell phones have endured to protect their loyal users...

Deflect a bullet or knife blade Who needs a bullet-proof vest when you've got a cell phone? Take this guy from Louisiana whose Motorola Razr in the breast pocket of his shirt stopped a stray bullet from piercing his heart. There's been a surprisingly high number of instances where a cell phone has stopped a bullet or knife, thereby preventing a fatality. This is particularly impressive considering the fact that all my cell phone has ever done is fly out of my pocket and land face down on the pavement.
Diagnose a life-threatening infection Where do doctors turn when they can't make a diagnosis? (No, not Wikipedia.) They do what anyone would do in a time of need - send picture-texts to their doctor friends to get a second opinion. With the aid of a camera phone, Lester Mundel's doctor contacted an infectious disease specialist over 70 miles away, sending pictures of Mundel's infected leg and foot. The diagnosis resulted in immediate surgery to remove the infected tissue, and helped save Mundel's leg and life. Mundel's response after he emerged from surgery? "Kthx!"
Stop yourself from falling into an icy crevasse While skiing down a glacier in Switzerland, David Fitzherbert fell 70 ft through the ice, only to get wedged at the top of a crevasse whose bottom was 700 feet below. There he dangled - injured - for two hours before he was rescued and rushed to a hospital. Had it not been for the extra inch of thickness provided by the Blackberry in his pocket, he would've fallen through and plummeted to his death. Of course, if he had been fat like the rest of us, he wouldn't even have need the phone in the first place. After all, the phone did nothing to prevent him from breaking his jaw, smashing his teeth, cracking a bone in his chest, and nearly cutting off his nose. What a piece of crap.
Discourage a bear from eating you When encountering a bear in the wild, most people would curl up in the fetal position and play dead. Not Terrence Bae. When his picnic in the woods with his girlfriend was interrupted by a bear, he decided that now was the time to look death in the face (even if that face was on a 400-pound predator with claws that could rip him apart). Rather than play dead like his dumb girlfriend suggested, he instead wielded his cell phone, accidentally causing it to beep. Noticing the bear appeared to be frightened by the beep, Bae decided the best thing to do would be to "scare" it further, holding his phone up towards the bear and making it beep at the same time. Miraculously, the bear retreated, and Bae lived to receive high fives from all of his bros.
Locate a kidnapping victim Not to be one-upped by their television counterparts, real-life police have finally caught on to the latest trends in technology. In one case, the police used both the tracking capabilities of a cell phone combined with Google Street Maps to locate a kidnapping victim. There are many other instances of kidnapping that have been solved with cell phone tracking, which just seems sloppy on the part of the kidnapper. How many episodes of CSI to you have to watch before you learn that you never let your victim have access to a phone?
Facilitate surgery during a power outage As you probably already know, performing surgery can be tricky in the dark; it's pretty messy and rarely successful, and that's why surgeons only do it on a double-dog dare. Unfortunately, they don't have double-dog dares in Argentina, so when the power went out in the main hospital in Villa Mercedes in the middle of an emergency appendectomy, the surgeons relied on the light from cell phones to finish the operation. Need light to perform surgery when the power goes out? There's an app for that.
Train your dog to dial 911 in an emergency Don't you just hate it when you get a seizure and die? Well Kevin Weaver decided to do something about it. The diabetic man from Florida trained his dog to call 911 in case of an emergency. When Weaver collapsed from a seizure at home by himself, his dog Belle dialed the proper authorities, and thank goodness the operator on the other end was Lassie's owner, otherwise Weaver would've been totally screwed. Now if only he could train that good-for-nothing cat to drive him to work...

http://www.pocketpicks.co.uk/latest/WPC-edit-content/uploads/2008/11/razr.jpg

Deflect a bullet or knife blade
Who needs a bullet-proof vest when you've got a cell phone? Take this guy from Louisiana whose Motorola Razr in the breast pocket of his shirt stopped a stray bullet from piercing his heart.

There's been a surprisingly high number of instances where a cell phone has stopped a bullet or knife, thereby preventing a fatality. This is particularly impressive considering the fact that all my cell phone has ever done is fly out of my pocket and land face down on the pavement.

How Your Cell Phone Could Save Your Life - HTC

Diagnose a life-threatening infection
Where do doctors turn when they can't make a diagnosis? (No, not Wikipedia.) They do what anyone would do in a time of need - send picture-texts to their doctor friends to get a second opinion.

With the aid of a camera phone, Lester Mundel's doctor contacted an infectious disease specialist over 70 miles away, sending pictures of Mundel's infected leg and foot. The diagnosis resulted in immediate surgery to remove the infected tissue, and helped save Mundel's leg and life. Mundel's response after he emerged from surgery? "Kthx!"

Stop yourself from falling into an icy crevasse
While skiing down a glacier in Switzerland, David Fitzherbert fell 70 ft through the ice, only to get wedged at the top of a crevasse whose bottom was 700 feet below. There he dangled - injured - for two hours before he was rescued and rushed to a hospital. Had it not been for the extra inch of thickness provided by the Blackberry in his pocket, he would've fallen through and plummeted to his death.

Of course, if he had been fat like the rest of us, he wouldn't even have need the phone in the first place. After all, the phone did nothing to prevent him from breaking his jaw, smashing his teeth, cracking a bone in his chest, and nearly cutting off his nose. What a piece of crap.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/photos/uncategorized/2008/04/23/grizzly_bear.jpg

Discourage a bear from eating you
When encountering a bear in the wild, most people would curl up in the fetal position and play dead. Not Terrence Bae. When his picnic in the woods with his girlfriend was interrupted by a bear, he decided that now was the time to look death in the face (even if that face was on a 400-pound predator with claws that could rip him apart).

Rather than play dead like his dumb girlfriend suggested, he instead wielded his cell phone, accidentally causing it to beep. Noticing the bear appeared to be frightened by the beep, Bae decided the best thing to do would be to "scare" it further, holding his phone up towards the bear and making it beep at the same time. Miraculously, the bear retreated, and Bae lived to receive high fives from all of his bros.

Locate a kidnapping victim
Not to be one-upped by their television counterparts, real-life police have finally caught on to the latest trends in technology. In one case, the police used both the tracking capabilities of a cell phone combined with Google Street Maps to locate a kidnapping victim.

There are many other instances of kidnapping that have been solved with cell phone tracking, which just seems sloppy on the part of the kidnapper. How many episodes of CSI to you have to watch before you learn that you never let your victim have access to a phone?

Facilitate surgery during a power outage
As you probably already know, performing surgery can be tricky in the dark; it's pretty messy and rarely successful, and that's why surgeons only do it on a double-dog dare.

Unfortunately, they don't have double-dog dares in Argentina, so when the power went out in the main hospital in Villa Mercedes in the middle of an emergency appendectomy, the surgeons relied on the light from cell phones to finish the operation. Need light to perform surgery when the power goes out? There's an app for that.

Train your dog to dial 911 in an emergency
Don't you just hate it when you get a seizure and die? Well Kevin Weaver decided to do something about it. The diabetic man from Florida trained his dog to call 911 in case of an emergency.

When Weaver collapsed from a seizure at home by himself, his dog Belle dialed the proper authorities, and thank goodness the operator on the other end was Lassie's owner, otherwise Weaver would've been totally screwed. Now if only he could train that good-for-nothing cat to drive him to work...

dustpaint	Latest page update: made by dustpaint , Jul 17 2009, 8:18 PM EDT (about this update About This Update Edited by dustpaint No content added or deleted. - complete history)
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