A man who was left with a serious head injury avoided bleeding out after his car plummeted 400 feet off a cliff where there was no phone reception but his iPhone 14 used a new feature to notify the emergency services about the crash via satellite.

The device, which only launched last September, reported the crash to 911 via satellite instead of the regular phone network.

Thanks to GPS tech, the phone was able to report the exact coordinates of where the car veered off the road to the authorities.

The Crescenta Valley Station of the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department said they were contacted by the driver’s iPhone, alerting them to the crash, which took place on Mt Wilson Road in the US state of California at around 10:30pm on Friday, 21st July.

The footage shows the rescuers attending the scene and winching the victim up the cliffside with a helicopter.

Other images show the totalled car, located 400 feet (122 metres) down the cliff.

The images were obtained from Mike Leum, a search-and-rescue first responder who works on US and international crises, on Saturday, 22nd July, with Leum, who works for the Montrose Search and Rescue, one of eight non-profit volunteer rescues teams that are affiliated with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, saying the man was found to be bleeding profusely from his head.

He also said that the car was a write-off and had the iPhone not notified them, the victim would probably be dead after having bled out.

Leum told local media: “I believe that if we didn’t have that good location information in a timely manner, he probably would’ve bled out.

He added: “I kept telling him how lucky he was.”

And Steve Goldsworthy, the Rescue Operations Leader of Montrose Search and Rescue, said: “He was 400 feet down in a canyon with virtually no way out.”

He added: “So, who knows when, or if, we would’ve located him.”

They reportedly said the victim, who has not been named, was lucky to have the latest iPhone tech on his device, which can contact the authorities via satellite instead of just calling 911 like older models.

It was especially lucky given that there was no reception in the area, with GPS being one of the only ways for the device to reach the outside world.

Deputies praised the phone for basically guiding them to his exact location, saying it could have been days before he would have been found had it not done so.