photo by: Douglas County Sheriff's Office

A Douglas County Sheriff's Office vehicle is pictured in January 2022.

A 20-year-old Lawrence man suffered injuries after a single-vehicle crash early Wednesday north of Lawrence.

The man’s iPhone sent an automated alert to emergency dispatchers that a crash had occurred, according to George Diepenbrock, a spokesman with the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office.

Dispatchers received the alert at 1:25 a.m. The crash occurred in the 1000 block of North 1800 Road, known as the Farmer’s Turnpike. Deputies were able to locate the vehicle, a 2022 Nissan Sentra, off the road in the area and found the driver.

They determined the vehicle left the road to the north and struck a culvert and drove through a row of cedar trees before rolling over. Medics took the man to a Topeka-area hospital with injuries not believed to be life-threatening. Deputies as part of the ongoing investigation are looking at impairment as a potential cause of the crash, Diepenbrock said.

Some iPhones and Apple watches have a crash-detection feature that will display an alert and then automatically notify emergency services if the alert is not shut off by the user within a certain period of time.