Sandy Fire Department rescues hiker with broken ankle from Dimple Dell Park, location found using app

SANDY, Utah (ABC4) — Sandy Fire Department rescued a hiker with a broken ankle in Dimple Dell Park, and they used an app to find the hiker’s location.

In a Facebook post, Sandy Fire said that Company 34A was dispatched to Dimple Dell Park, and they located the patient across the river using the What 3 Words app.

They were assisted by the crew of Medic Engine 32A and Sandy FD’s backcountry ranger in getting the patient out. They loaded the patient onto a wheeled stretcher and took them across the flooded river to the ranger.

In the Facebook post, Sandy Fire suggested that hikers download the What 3 Words app before hiking because it can help crews find a person’s location in an emergency.

On its website, What 3 Words says it is the easiest way to describe any precise location. The app assigns every 10-foot square in the world a unique address made of three random words, which allows them to get much more precise with a location than a traditional address could. These addresses are always formatted as such: ///word.word.word.