8 ms·

Man says Tesla Autopilot saved his life by driving him to the hospital

78 points by sz4kerto 10y ago

sz4kerto 10y ago
Found a better link: https://techcrunch.com/2016/08/07/autopilot-in-tesla-model-x-helps-driver-get-safely-to-a-hospital/ https://techcrunch.com/2016/08/07/autopilot-in-tesla-model-x...
andys627 10y ago
Not really
LargeCompanies 10y ago
Love the PR machine here ... though i'm not saying this didn't happen or isn't real, but it's a way better story line then Telsa's AutoPilot kills driver, as happened in Florida.
- tajen 10y ago
  Plus, hospitals are not really drive-in. You get much, much better safety of you're driven in by an emergency vehicle, who books the doctors upon approach, gets priority lanes and who can open the gates. Driving in and having to explain yourself at the reception is another story.
  - bhickey 10y ago
    Uh... I don't know what hospitals you've been going to. A few years back I brought a friend with a perforated ulcer to the ER. They had her under the care of nursing in about sixty seconds.
    - kyriakos 10y ago
      You brought your friend, ie she was escorted. In the tesla case we're assuming you are in a condition to open the car door and walk in the ER and then explain your medical emergency...
      - robbiep 10y ago
        At my hospital we have near-weekly cases of patients arriving in cars to the front of the Emergency Department, necessitating a resus crew operating out of the car->trolley->resus bay
      - ivanca 10y ago
        You can always call the hospital from the car to tell them your emergency and mention them your plates.
      - jessriedel 10y ago
        There's nothing preventing you from calling 911 enroute, or coordinating with the operator to pull over for ambulance pick up once you know that they are very close.
      - gozur88 10y ago
        I'm picturing someone expiring in his car outside the hospital because nobody was around to get him into the ER. The ambulance crew does more than just drive - otherwise you might as well take a taxi.
        brokenmachine 10y ago
        Even a taxi driver could make sure the patient can exit the car. I'm picturing an unconcious guy arriving in a car and expiring in the car outside the hospital.
  - justin66 10y ago
    > Driving in and having to explain yourself at the reception is another story. I wonder if the paramedics do some of the work and notetaking a triage nurse would do in a crowded ER. They certainly have a lot of that stuff ready to hand off when they roll into the ER. It's odd, in a way. In the area I live the hospitals typically say that walk-ins get the same level of priority in the triage process as patients driven in by EMS but no one who is not employed by a hospital's PR department would agree with that.
    - srtjstjsj 10y ago
      If you don't need hospital care, EMS might just treat you onsite and not drive you in. EMS does triage because they see you.
  - jrnichols 10y ago
    > You get much, much better safety of you're driven in by an emergency vehicle, who books the doctors upon approach, gets priority lanes and who can open the gates There is no truth to this whatsoever. Totally false. I'm a Paramedic, and I still see people claiming this. Sorry, but if you call 911 because you tripped over a rug and your ankle hurts, it's likely that you're going to get wheeled right through the ER and out into the waiting room.
- LargeCompanies 10y ago
  Actually I'm leaning towards this being fake and manufactured by a PR firm Telsa hired. You can't believe much of what you see on the Internet. Though the majority seem to ... so much crap is made up for pageviews and in this case for the better of Telsa's AutoPilot program/bottom line.
  - seanmcdirmid 10y ago
    I'm pretty sure Tesla had nothing to do with this. It makes autopilot seem much more than they've claimed, and if they were ever found out to do this kind of marketing, the lawsuits would be huge. It still might be faked, but there are many more who would gain something from fakng th without having massive downside like Tesla.
    - LargeCompanies 10y ago
      I marketed an app once using fake stories and posts and definitely saw benefit. Thus, I always have my B.S. Meter turned on. Though I might need to turn it off some as it makes me think Trump is Clinton's puppet to ensure her win. The stuff he says and she isn't likable, yet it's crazy man or queen Clinton.
      - seanmcdirmid 10y ago
        You should try using Hanlon's razor more. It really is useful and is accurate most of the time. Given the choice of an event occurring because someone is an idiot or by direct malice, the former is usually true given that the latter isn't necessary.
exhilaration 10y ago
What if he had died en route? Would the car have come to a safe stop?
- mikeash 10y ago
  Likely. The car occasionally asks the driver to place their hands on the steering wheel, based on conditions and the car's evaluation of its own ability to handle them. If you don't obey after some warnings, then the car will put on the hazard lights and brake to a stop. Not very safe on a busy road, but safer than an incapacitated driver heading off into the woods.
rdtsc 10y ago
Is that good PR though? Now impaired people with Teslas are going to be trying to drive themselves home or to hospitals, with potential disastruous consequences. "He's having a heart attack, should we call an ambulance? Nah, shove him in his Tesla and set a route for the hospital, they'll sort it out there".
- ivanca 10y ago
  Just like we now rely on babies to call 911 for emergencies since we heard about one successfully doing it once. Seriously, this is the worst kind of strawman, pretending reading about a single case of something will change how people behave in an emergency.
  - machinelearning 10y ago
    I'd like to hear the rationale of the people who downvote this comment. This comment looks correct to me. The main characteristic of established protocols in the event of an emergency are that they are supposed to be reliable and not require complex computation on the part of the user. I doubt any sane person (simple metric: those who would call the ambulance instead of driving the person to the hospital in current times), would be more likely to use the autopilot feature instead of calling an ambulance. Yes there will always be dumb people till posterity, but to claim people are more likely to abuse the feature than current rates is nonsense.
    - rdtsc 10y ago
      I think in general anything slightly negative about Tesla or Elon Musk related has a good chance of getting downvoted on HN.
- comboy 10y ago
  It's kind of like saying that knowing how to provide first aid is bad because you can do something wrong that a doctor wouldn't screw up. Having more ways to get somebody to the hospital is better than having less of them. It's just like with knifes. Yes, some people will find a way to hurt themselves using them, but that's not really a good argument to get rid of them.
jo909 10y ago
"saved his life" kind of implies that there was no other viable option to get to the hospital, like calling an ambulance. And what a tragic story it would have been if he had become unconscious along the way, the car stopping somewhere on the side of the road and it takes too long to find and help him.
- ivanca 10y ago
  Actually it would have been more tragic in almost any other car, because when people turn unconscious driving they sometimes crash against other vehicles.
- manojlds 10y ago
  The Tesla would have stopped on the road itself, with hazard lights on.
  - jeffbush 10y ago
    How would it know to do that? I assume if he had passed out it would have just continued driving on the highway until it ran out of battery, right?
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
    - brokenmachine 10y ago
      I think they beep to warn you, then eventually stop if you don't have your hands on the wheel.
      - jeffbush 10y ago
        Sure enough :) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z7ojb2x2R28&feature=youtu.be https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z7ojb2x2R28&feature=youtu.be
- heimatau 10y ago
tedunangst 10y ago
And then people wonder how the misconception that "autopilot" can drive itself arises.
- dominotw 10y ago
  > misconception that "autopilot" can drive itself arises. Probably from autopilots in planes which drive themselves.
  - bluecmd 10y ago
    But... they really don't. There is a lot of things that will make the auto pilot disengage and you will always need to change the programming enroute.
    - braythwayt 10y ago
      This! The autopilot on a plane is nothing like a self-driving car. It’s mostly cruise-control in an environment where a collision with another vehicle is much, much less likely than an automobile on an undivided highway.
  - cesarb 10y ago
    As far as I know, airplane autopilots are somewhat similar to Tesla's system. They can keep your airplane at a certain airspeed, and keep your airplane in a certain "lane". You are responsible for telling the autopilot which airspeed/direction to keep.
StavrosK 10y ago
Okay, I'm confused. Is this car's autopilot not just "follow the vehicle in front of me, possibly steering a bit to stay in the lane"? Most commenters here are commenting like you give it the destination and it drives you, but, as far as I know, the car does no such thing. Title should be changed "Tesla saved man's life by keeping him from crashing when he couldn't drive well", but that's not as inviting.
- jeffbush 10y ago
  Yeah, in the article he said the hospital was near the freeway exit and he drove manually the rest of the way, which kinda makes the story a bit less dramatic.
goldmar 10y ago
I think a more fitting headline would be "man endangers fellow traffic participants by using a beta 'autopilot' feature while not paying attention to traffic conditions".

78 points by sz4kerto 10y ago

Found a better link: https://techcrunch.com/2016/08/07/autopilot-in-tesla-model-x-helps-driver-get-safely-to-a-hospital/ https://techcrunch.com/2016/08/07/autopilot-in-tesla-model-x...

andys627 10y ago

Not really

LargeCompanies 10y ago

Love the PR machine here ... though i'm not saying this didn't happen or isn't real, but it's a way better story line then Telsa's AutoPilot kills driver, as happened in Florida.

tajen 10y ago
Plus, hospitals are not really drive-in. You get much, much better safety of you're driven in by an emergency vehicle, who books the doctors upon approach, gets priority lanes and who can open the gates. Driving in and having to explain yourself at the reception is another story.
- bhickey 10y ago
  Uh... I don't know what hospitals you've been going to. A few years back I brought a friend with a perforated ulcer to the ER. They had her under the care of nursing in about sixty seconds.
  - kyriakos 10y ago
    You brought your friend, ie she was escorted. In the tesla case we're assuming you are in a condition to open the car door and walk in the ER and then explain your medical emergency...
    - robbiep 10y ago
      At my hospital we have near-weekly cases of patients arriving in cars to the front of the Emergency Department, necessitating a resus crew operating out of the car->trolley->resus bay
    - ivanca 10y ago
      You can always call the hospital from the car to tell them your emergency and mention them your plates.
    - jessriedel 10y ago
      There's nothing preventing you from calling 911 enroute, or coordinating with the operator to pull over for ambulance pick up once you know that they are very close.
    - gozur88 10y ago
      I'm picturing someone expiring in his car outside the hospital because nobody was around to get him into the ER. The ambulance crew does more than just drive - otherwise you might as well take a taxi.
      - brokenmachine 10y ago
        Even a taxi driver could make sure the patient can exit the car. I'm picturing an unconcious guy arriving in a car and expiring in the car outside the hospital.
- justin66 10y ago
  > Driving in and having to explain yourself at the reception is another story. I wonder if the paramedics do some of the work and notetaking a triage nurse would do in a crowded ER. They certainly have a lot of that stuff ready to hand off when they roll into the ER. It's odd, in a way. In the area I live the hospitals typically say that walk-ins get the same level of priority in the triage process as patients driven in by EMS but no one who is not employed by a hospital's PR department would agree with that.
  - srtjstjsj 10y ago
    If you don't need hospital care, EMS might just treat you onsite and not drive you in. EMS does triage because they see you.
- jrnichols 10y ago
  > You get much, much better safety of you're driven in by an emergency vehicle, who books the doctors upon approach, gets priority lanes and who can open the gates There is no truth to this whatsoever. Totally false. I'm a Paramedic, and I still see people claiming this. Sorry, but if you call 911 because you tripped over a rug and your ankle hurts, it's likely that you're going to get wheeled right through the ER and out into the waiting room.
LargeCompanies 10y ago
Actually I'm leaning towards this being fake and manufactured by a PR firm Telsa hired. You can't believe much of what you see on the Internet. Though the majority seem to ... so much crap is made up for pageviews and in this case for the better of Telsa's AutoPilot program/bottom line.
- seanmcdirmid 10y ago
  I'm pretty sure Tesla had nothing to do with this. It makes autopilot seem much more than they've claimed, and if they were ever found out to do this kind of marketing, the lawsuits would be huge. It still might be faked, but there are many more who would gain something from fakng th without having massive downside like Tesla.
  - LargeCompanies 10y ago
    I marketed an app once using fake stories and posts and definitely saw benefit. Thus, I always have my B.S. Meter turned on. Though I might need to turn it off some as it makes me think Trump is Clinton's puppet to ensure her win. The stuff he says and she isn't likable, yet it's crazy man or queen Clinton.
    - seanmcdirmid 10y ago
      You should try using Hanlon's razor more. It really is useful and is accurate most of the time. Given the choice of an event occurring because someone is an idiot or by direct malice, the former is usually true given that the latter isn't necessary.

exhilaration 10y ago

What if he had died en route? Would the car have come to a safe stop?

mikeash 10y ago
Likely. The car occasionally asks the driver to place their hands on the steering wheel, based on conditions and the car's evaluation of its own ability to handle them. If you don't obey after some warnings, then the car will put on the hazard lights and brake to a stop. Not very safe on a busy road, but safer than an incapacitated driver heading off into the woods.

rdtsc 10y ago

Is that good PR though? Now impaired people with Teslas are going to be trying to drive themselves home or to hospitals, with potential disastruous consequences. "He's having a heart attack, should we call an ambulance? Nah, shove him in his Tesla and set a route for the hospital, they'll sort it out there".

ivanca 10y ago
Just like we now rely on babies to call 911 for emergencies since we heard about one successfully doing it once. Seriously, this is the worst kind of strawman, pretending reading about a single case of something will change how people behave in an emergency.
- machinelearning 10y ago
  I'd like to hear the rationale of the people who downvote this comment. This comment looks correct to me. The main characteristic of established protocols in the event of an emergency are that they are supposed to be reliable and not require complex computation on the part of the user. I doubt any sane person (simple metric: those who would call the ambulance instead of driving the person to the hospital in current times), would be more likely to use the autopilot feature instead of calling an ambulance. Yes there will always be dumb people till posterity, but to claim people are more likely to abuse the feature than current rates is nonsense.
  - rdtsc 10y ago
    I think in general anything slightly negative about Tesla or Elon Musk related has a good chance of getting downvoted on HN.
comboy 10y ago
It's kind of like saying that knowing how to provide first aid is bad because you can do something wrong that a doctor wouldn't screw up. Having more ways to get somebody to the hospital is better than having less of them. It's just like with knifes. Yes, some people will find a way to hurt themselves using them, but that's not really a good argument to get rid of them.

jo909 10y ago

"saved his life" kind of implies that there was no other viable option to get to the hospital, like calling an ambulance. And what a tragic story it would have been if he had become unconscious along the way, the car stopping somewhere on the side of the road and it takes too long to find and help him.

ivanca 10y ago
Actually it would have been more tragic in almost any other car, because when people turn unconscious driving they sometimes crash against other vehicles.
manojlds 10y ago
The Tesla would have stopped on the road itself, with hazard lights on.
- jeffbush 10y ago
  How would it know to do that? I assume if he had passed out it would have just continued driving on the highway until it ran out of battery, right?
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - brokenmachine 10y ago
    I think they beep to warn you, then eventually stop if you don't have your hands on the wheel.
    - jeffbush 10y ago
      Sure enough :) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z7ojb2x2R28&feature=youtu.be https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z7ojb2x2R28&feature=youtu.be
heimatau 10y ago

tedunangst 10y ago

And then people wonder how the misconception that "autopilot" can drive itself arises.

dominotw 10y ago
> misconception that "autopilot" can drive itself arises. Probably from autopilots in planes which drive themselves.
- bluecmd 10y ago
  But... they really don't. There is a lot of things that will make the auto pilot disengage and you will always need to change the programming enroute.
  - braythwayt 10y ago
    This! The autopilot on a plane is nothing like a self-driving car. It’s mostly cruise-control in an environment where a collision with another vehicle is much, much less likely than an automobile on an undivided highway.
- cesarb 10y ago
  As far as I know, airplane autopilots are somewhat similar to Tesla's system. They can keep your airplane at a certain airspeed, and keep your airplane in a certain "lane". You are responsible for telling the autopilot which airspeed/direction to keep.

StavrosK 10y ago

Okay, I'm confused. Is this car's autopilot not just "follow the vehicle in front of me, possibly steering a bit to stay in the lane"? Most commenters here are commenting like you give it the destination and it drives you, but, as far as I know, the car does no such thing. Title should be changed "Tesla saved man's life by keeping him from crashing when he couldn't drive well", but that's not as inviting.

jeffbush 10y ago
Yeah, in the article he said the hospital was near the freeway exit and he drove manually the rest of the way, which kinda makes the story a bit less dramatic.

goldmar 10y ago

I think a more fitting headline would be "man endangers fellow traffic participants by using a beta 'autopilot' feature while not paying attention to traffic conditions".