Digital Media Saves a Real Life

The Baywatch TV series may be in reruns, but it seems that we can now all participate in dramatic beach rescues courtesy of digital technology.

In Germany today (BBC reports), a person watching a beautiful sunset via a webcam spotted camera flashes out in the icy sea and alerted the authorities. It turns out that a man drifting out to sea in freezing temperatures had the presence to use his camera flash as an emergency beacon and was luckily spotted via a webcam setup to look out into the sea. A fortunate rescue ensued and a man’s life was saved because of web technology.

As usual when there is crossover from digital/social life into the real world, this may have curious implications in the area of public safety. Is it that much of a stretch to have crowd sourced neighborhood watches or street traffic updates and enforcement. Surely many interesting developments of this kind will follow.

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