Man falls into frozen Mississippi river, blames Google Maps

One Google Maps user had the unfortunate experience of walking over a frozen river and falling into it.

Google Maps couldn’t detect frozen lake for this one user. (Pixabay/Representative image)

Google Maps is the go-to feature on your smartphone for navigation. It is one of the most downloaded apps ever, but a man has now accused it of misguiding him after falling into the frozen Mississippi river in the US.

According to a report by CBS, the Google Maps incident took place in the night in Minneapolis city near the Stone Arch Bridge. The man was walking over the frozen river before he fell through the ice.

The victim was partially submerged in the ice, until the firefighters came to his rescue, the report added

On being asked why he was walking on a frozen river, the man claimed that Google Maps had instructed him to do so. He has suffered a mild case of hypothermia.

The CBS report quoted the fire department saying Google Maps possibly asked him to cross the bridge and not walk across the river.

His claim, however, seems to be bizarre as Google Maps only shows mapped roads. But it cannot be denied that glitches in the app have bit reported before but walking through a frozen river is perhaps a bit too far.

Last week, a man in Berlin tricked Google Maps by carrying 99 smartphones together and made everyone believe that there was a huge traffic jam. But it was just him carrying an entire wagon of phones with Google Maps on.

Google said the maps have the ability to distinguish between bikes and cars in various countries, including India, but till now they have not considered travelling by wagon as an option for commuting.

Google Maps, which celebrated 15 years this month, got a brand new redesigned logo along with some interesting new features.

The new logo now has yellow, red, blue and green colours and is more minimalist. The map background has been replaced with solid white.

In terms of features, three new tabs apart from the already existing commute and explore have been added. Google Maps now has five tabs: Explore, Commute, Saved, Contribute and Updates.