We’ve already talked here on TC about several cases in which an Apple Watch managed to save its user’s life, either through location or its security alerts. This week, the Cupertino giant’s smart watch performed yet another heroic feat by identifying that its user’s health was not normal.
A Cleveland, Ohio resident began receiving a series of alerts on his Apple Watch, allowing him to discover that he had multiple blood clots. Doctors say few people have a chance of surviving in cases like this, assuming they don’t get immediate medical attention.
Ken Counihan says he prefers to keep track of his activities, which is why he bought the Apple Watch in the first place. One day, the device kept sending alerts, saying his breathing was elevated. When he and his wife went to the doctor, all they did was take an X-ray and prescribe medicine.
I got an alert in October that my breathing was elevated. So basically you have a certain number of breaths per minute, and mine went from 14 to 17 or 18. My wife asked me to call my son and he suggested I go to the clinic, which is what I did. . They did an X-ray and gave me some medicine for bronchitis at the time.
By the end of the night, Counihan’s blood oxygen levels began to drop, so naturally his wife and son rushed to the hospital, where further diagnostics revealed that the Apple Watch owner had blood clots in both lungs. MD Lucy Franjic, who is an emergency physician at the Cleveland Clinic, says blood clots are a serious condition and Counihan’s life would have been at risk had he not sought medical attention earlier.
My blood oxygen – which normally averages around 90, which is what it should be, sort of 95 or so – started to average around 80. It was 10 o’clock at night. My wife was very worried. My son was very worried. I was like ‘I just want to go to bed. I’m tired… and they both said ‘No, you have to go to the emergency room. They took me back for the CT scan and found that I had blood clots in my lungs.
Franjic says that 60 percent of people who have blood clots in their lungs may not wake up the next day, indicating that while the Apple Watch didn’t exactly alert him to this condition, the notifications he received were enough to warrant a doctor’s visit, which finally saved his life.
Do you already have smart watches that monitor your health?