A young woman who was left unconscious in the mutilated wreckage of her car after a serious accident on a quiet road has revealed that a little-known feature on her phone saved her life.
Tori Pellow, 20, had spent the night of July 18 in Portland, about 15 miles northwest of Lithgow in central western NSW, and was driving home to Orange the next morning.
But disaster struck on the lonely Sunny Corner Road less than 20 minutes after she left her friend’s house at around 6:30 am.
“I hit black ice and drove over several trees before crashing into it, hitting it so hard it ripped the whole front axle off my car,” she told Daily Mail Australia.
Tori said she doesn’t remember much about the crash other than her phone ringing.
Tori Pellow was driving from Portland to Orange in central western New South Wales when her car hit a patch of black ice and crashed (Photo: Tori’s car wreck)
Tori (pictured after the crash) spent four days at Westmead Hospital with several fractures, a concussion and an injured wrist
She had set up the Emergency SOS feature which detected the crash and notified emergency services and her designated contacts.
“At 6:49 a.m. my emergency contacts received a text message saying I had been in a car accident, (my phone) also sent them the exact location of where I was,” she said.
“The Emergency SOS feature also automatically called emergency services and provided them with my personal information and location.
“There were several ambulances on site, but also police officers, fire brigade and municipal employees because the road had to be closed.”
Tori had to be cut from her car as she floated in and out of consciousness before being taken to hospital with a long list of serious injuries.
“I was flown straight from the scene to Westmead Hospital in Sydney,” she said.
“I was treated there for four days for a concussion, fractures to my face – including my eye socket, cheekbone and jaw – and had to have surgery on my right wrist to remove both the plastic and the glass that were inside.”
Sunny Corner Road is generally quiet, especially early in the morning.
The Emergency SOS feature on Tori’s phone called emergency services to notify them of the crash and sent a text message with her location to her designated emergency contacts (pictured, Tori a month after the crash – her face has mostly healed, but she has trouble using her wrist)
Tori feared she could be left injured on the side of the road for hours if her phone hadn’t sent the emergency alerts.
“I had never used the SOS function before, but after my accident I recommend everyone to set it up on their phone,” she said.
“Life is so unpredictable and if I didn’t have this quality, chances are I could have ended up much worse than I did.
“I’m very lucky to have survived the crash the way I did, and part of that is thanks to Emergency SOS.”
Five weeks after the crash, Tori’s recovery is going well. Her face has mostly healed and her biggest struggle for the hairdresser is using her wrist at work.
She thanked the first responders who rescued her and an unidentified woman who noticed her wrecked car and helped her stay calm until emergency services arrived.
She said she had never heard of Emergency SOS until she saw a video explaining how it works online.
Tori (pictured more than a month after the crash) urged all drivers to set up the SOS Emergency feature on their phones
Sunny Corner Road (above) is usually very quiet. If Emergency SOS hadn’t notified Tori’s contacts and emergency services, she could have been left injured on the side of the road for hours
“I had no idea about the feature on my phone until I saw a TikTok video about it,” she said.
“I didn’t think I’d ever need it, but set it up anyway. I had to fill in a section about my personal information and then choose who I wanted to be alerted when the Emergency SOS was activated.
“My phone was able to detect the crash because it has a range of senses for my movement, speed, pressure change and sound level.
When this feature is activated after a crash it will run a countdown giving you the option to cancel the call to the emergency services and if you don’t it will contact them for you to let them know what’s up happened.
“Since I had a concussion, this was one of the best parts of the feature film.”
Emergency SOS is available on Apple and Android phones and can be set up in the Settings app.