Carrollton Motorcyclist's Cell Phone Signals for Help After Accident

June 12, 2008 - You hear it frequently: don’t talk on your cell phone while driving. After an accident, however, your cell phone may be your very best "SOS." A Carrollton motorcyclist who ran off the road while traveling on Highway 166 on the evening of June 6 knows this lesson very well. According to the Times-Georgian, the cyclist used his cell phone to call his wife after the accident occurred, but he was not sure of his location, and his injuries prevented him from returning to the highway to get his bearings or find help there.

The call was lost quickly, but the man’s wife alerted authorities who then searched the roads he frequented: Highway 70 (in Fulton County) and Highway 166 (in both Carroll and Douglas counties). After enduring his pain throughout the night and into the morning of June 7, the Carrollton traveler made another call from his cell phone at 10:00am, enabling the police to determine his approximate location from the signal. Authorities used sirens to which the injured man responded via phone when they became closer. Though the accident victim’s leg and head were injured, he was in "good condition" at Atlanta’s Grady Memorial Hospital later that morning.