Probably too late to mean anything, but I think folks are missing part of the point of this lawsuit.
As several people have pointed out, this is hard problem to solve. No one is going to try to solve it unless they think they can make money off it, and since Apple has this patent, that's one more hurdle you put up to solving it.
If Apple didn't have this patent, someone else might have solved this problem by now, and more people might be alive. Or, to flip it around, Apple contributed to the death of the person by making it more difficult for anyone else to develop the safety system by abusing the patent system to protect a technology they do not intend to develop.
Part of me would like to see Apple lose this case. Right now Trolls file or buy lots of vague patents hoping someone will later invent something that sort of violates them, because there's no real downside to doing so. This would unleash a horde of Ambulance chasers combing through those patents to find ones that kind of fit any given accident. Suddenly, being a Patent Troll becomes risky.
Sure, there would be a downside- Legitimate inventors would have to shoulder the burden of proving they are working on bringing a product to market as a defense to the same lawsuits, for example. And while upon sober reflection, I may agree that it's overall a Bad Thing(TM), right now I kind of like the idea of forcing patent trolls to pay for stifling innovation.