And you thought you loved Skype? Just ask Roy Hicks, a 79-year-old man residing in South Africa. There is a fair chance that he loves Microsoft’s VoIP platform more than anyone else in the world.
His life was saved thanks to Microsoft’s Skype platform.
A report published by News24 says that Hicks was talking to his son in New Zealand on Skype when two armed robbers broke into his house to rob the place. The two were tying up Hicks when they were spotted on the webcam by the victim’s son.
He was swift to act and alerted the South African police about the robbery.
The report says that police officers rushed to the scene of the crime, shot dead one of the attackers and arrested the other one. Hicks expressed his gratitude for Skype while saying:
“I am very grateful to my son Mark. This thing was very traumatic for me. Mark couldn’t see them very well but he could hear the racket.”
Skype obviously does not provide the ability to call emergency numbers (like 911 in North America, 112 in Europe) for security and reliability reasons. But events like this confirm that it often transcends from being just a communication platform.
All in a good day’s work for the world’s most popular VoIP platform!
All Comments
The robbers may not want to take the life of Roy. So instead of Skype saved his life. I would say Skype took the life of one robber. At least this is the end result of the story.