A teenager who smashed his face after fainting alone at home said he was saved by iPhone virtual assistant Siri – after it phoned for help.
Alishan Mahmood, 19, said he was left “blinded” by blood and glass after collapsing in his kitchen and smashing his face on a pint glass he was carrying.
He was home alone, unable to get up and had blurred vision, and his shouts to his neighbours went unheard.
But the shop worker bought an iPhone X last month and remembered about it’s voice activated assistant while he was lying on the floor — and shouted ‘Hey Siri’.
He then asked the smartphone to phone his older sister Rbeeda, 21, who rushed home while phoning for an ambulance, and paramedics took him to hospital.
Ali, from High Wycombe, northwest London, said: “It was really scary.
“When I opened my right eye all I could see was blood.
“I thought for a moment I was going blind.
“I couldn’t really breathe properly and I was going into a bit of a panic.
“I tried to stretch out to my phone which must have been about a metre away.
“Then I remembered about the Siri setting.
“It felt like the stupidest thing calling out to it but I had no other choice but to give it a go.
“I called out ‘Hey Siri’ and it responded ‘How can I help?’
“I felt this sigh of relief as it was as though someone was acknowledging the pain I was in.
“I then said ‘Phone Rbeeda’ and it put me through straight away.
“Thankfully she picked up the phone straight away and phoned an ambulance too.
“People always slag off young people for always having their phones in their hand but had I left it upstairs I would have been there for God knows how long.”
Ali decided to spend his bank holiday Sunday home alone after feeling “dizzy” earlier in the day.
With his mum, dad and five sisters out for a family meal, Ali text older sister Rbeeda at 10pm saying he was heading to bed.
Before hitting the hay Ali decided to get a drink from downstairs.
But before he was able to pour himself a glass of tropical juice the retail worker suddenly collapsed on the kitchen floor with the tumbler in his hand.
Ali’s panicked phone call allowed his family to call 999 while driving home to help the bloodied teen.
His family and paramedics arrived at the house within 15 minutes, and Ali was taken to Stoke Mandeville Hospital.
He had blood tests and CT scans but doctors didn’t discover the reason he fainted, and he was sent home to rest.
Ali said: “The moral of the story is Siri saved my life.
“You do just think £48 a month is a waste of money but now I think of it in a different way.
“You can’t put a price on life.”
By Ben Gelblum and Olive Loveridge-Greene