A woman saved her own life by using her AirPods to call 911 after falling.
Susan Putman, 60 was chatting with friends and dancing to music on Oct. 15 when she tripped and fell in her Bernardsville, New Jersey garage studio. The woman, who works as a floral arrangements designer, hit her head on a sharp metal pole.
“I was working on a four-foot horseshoe wreath, and I stepped back to look at it and I forgot its box was sitting on the floor,” Putman told PEOPLE. “I must have been very conscious about not smashing the wreath because I tripped and flew maybe 8 ft. in the air and my head landed against these metal poles.”
Putman said she doesn’t know if she lost consciousness but remembers seeing herself bleeding heavily. “When I reached to my head and felt that it was bleeding, I realized that my AirPods were in,” she says. “There was a lot of blood and I freaked out, but I immediately said, ‘Hey Siri, call 911.'”
Eventually, Putman was connected with a 911 operator who stayed with her until police showed up. “The only thing I remember is the two police guys getting there and one is holding a towel to my head, and he says to the other one to tell the ambulance to get there right now because I was losing a lot of blood,” she says. “Honestly, if it had been another 15 minutes, I’m not sure I’d be here. There’s no doubt about it — if I didn’t have my AirPods in, I would’ve died.”
Putman was taken to the hospital, where she was diagnosed with having a concussion. For a month and a half after, she was unable to look at device screens without getting nauseous. The woman says she wants more people to know about the AirPod feature, as it could save another person’s life. “I just think spreading the word is a really good thing,” she says. “Hopefully this might help somebody else.”
