Woman, 59, dead in rollover southeast of Dauphin
RCMP alerted about crash by automated iPhone notification
A 59-year-old woman died after her vehicle rolled over and landed in a water-filled ditch in western Manitoba.
Police were alerted to the incident around 11:45 p.m. Friday by a crash notification sent from the woman's iPhone, said RCMP Sgt. Paul Manaigre.
When officers arrived, the woman had been pulled from her vehicle by several passersby, who had come across the scene.
Paramedics rushed the woman to hospital where she was later pronounced dead.
It's believed the woman lost control of the vehicle on the gravel road as it crossed a rail line.
The initial alert to police gave a radius off Highway 5, near Ochre River. A short time later, an updated alert pinpointed the crash to Road 140N in the rural municipality of Lakeshore, just southeast of Dauphin.
The alert is an automatic feature that detects a very sudden deceleration, according to Manaigre. It then activates an emergency alert.
If it's not an actual emergency, the user has 10 seconds to turn it off.
"It even talks to you to see if you can respond by voice command. If after the 10 seconds, you don't turn it off, it contacts 911 and provides an approximate location via latitude/longitude coordinates," Manaigre said in an email.
He said it's not the first such notification RCMP have received, but Manaigre believes it's the first one related to a fatal crash.
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