Man Trapped In Car In Icy River Saved By Yelling, ‘Siri, Call 911’

Man Trapped In Car In Icy River Saved By Yelling, ‘Siri, Call 911’

An Iowa man recently survived what could have easily been a fatal road accident by shouting “Siri, call 911,” CNN reported on Thursday.

KIMT3 News reported that 18-year-old Charles City, Iowa man Gael Salcedo was driving to classes at North Iowa Area Community College when he slid on ice and was plunged into the Winnebago River near Mason City the morning of Dec. 10. Accuweather pegs the temperature in the region at just a high of 11 degrees Fahrenheit (-11 degrees Celsius) and a low of -3 degrees (-20 degrees Celsius) that day, and the river was icy when Salcedo’s car was trapped in it. Salcedo rolled down his car window, concerned the vehicle might sink and trap him inside.

“I turned to the right and from there, everything just went blurry,” Salcedo told KIMT3. “I didn’t know where I was going and then I just didn’t know what to do. I was just thinking in my head ‘I think I’m going to die.’”

“I lost my phone and since I couldn’t find it, I was like ‘Hey Siri, call 911.’ And once Siri called, that’s when I found my phone finally.”

Mason City firefighters arrived as the water rose inside the vehicle. They found the driver’s side door forced shut against the current, and informed Salcedo that he would have to walk his way out of the river despite the below-freezing temperatures, the department’s Lieutenant Craig Warner told the station. Salcedo added that “My hands were freezing. I couldn’t feel my legs anymore, so I was struggling a lot and the water was just so strong, so I kept tripping and I had the guy help me up a bunch of times and I used all my strength to get out of the water.”

Salcedo was treated for shock and released from a local medical institution roughly three hours later, KIMT wrote.

“He did an awesome job of walking himself out,” Warner told KIMT in a prior article. “You don’t realise how strong that water is. It’s a workout.”

Excellent job for once, Siri.