People in northern Upper Palatinate are used to a lot of things: tanks on the highway, low-flying fighter jets, military convoys, NATO exercises, restricted military areas, noise from gunfire, princesses with a penchant for conspiracy myths. This is due, among other things, to the Grafenwöhr and Hohenfels military training areas. And princesses with a penchant for conspiracy myths.
What happened last Friday – otherwise completely normal in the Upper Palatinate – was in the realm of reality. At least at first. A real helicopter thundered over the Regensburg and Schwandorf districts, sirens could actually be heard, and a hundred flesh-and-blood emergency services moved out to a pond in the Schwandorf district in the evening.
The spectacle took place not far from the small town of Bodenwöhr, not to be confused with Grafenwöhr, even if the scenes on that Friday may have seemed almost military. It was suspected that several people were in distress and the pond was searched by helicopter with a searchlight.
The danger actually existed only in theory, as it turned out. The operation was triggered by a false alarm from a smartwatch whose owner was neither in the district in question nor had ever been to the pond in her life.
The watches sometimes sound an alarm if the owner stumbles or their pulse increases
The only consolation the emergency services have for their messy Friday evening is the knowledge that they are completely in the juice. The smartwatch sounded a false alarm at 8 p.m. The operation was over at 8:36 p.m. Firefighters, doctors and police arrived and departed with military speed and precision. Practice makes perfect! Admittedly, the police, fire brigade and paramedics have had a lot of this lately. The not-so-smart watches sometimes trigger an alarm if the owner stumbles or his pulse rises during an argument.
A few days after the false alarm, a real exercise began in the Upper Palatinate. 6,000 soldiers and around 1,500 vehicles are taking part in the major NATO exercise “Allied Spirit 24”. So there will be a lot going on in the Upper Palatinate again. It is not known whether reasonably intelligent watches play a role in this. Hopefully not.