The Apple Watch notifies a lucky user about his potentially fatal medical condition
The Apple Watch has done it again as Apple's connected timepiece has saved another life. So which life saving feature did the device use this time? Was it fall detection (which does NOT inform you when the season has moved from summer to fall)? Crash detection? The heart rate monitor? The EKG? Emergency SOS? Care to take a guess? If you guessed the heart rate monitor, you are correct.
Mike Gomez wore his Apple Watch because he used it to keep track of his workouts, especially the number of calories he burned off during a session. As 2024 became 2025 last month, Gomez started to receive notifications on his Apple Watch alerting him to a problem he had with his heart rate. If that wasn't scary enough, Mike received five subsequent notifications warning that he was in atrial fibrillation aka Afib which is an irregular heartbeat that usually is too fast.
While it feels like fluttering in your chest, Afib is a serious condition that affects more than 5 million Americans according to the American Heart Association. It can lead to the creation of blood clots in the heart causing strokes, heart attacks, and heart failure.
"Do everything you can to, you know, make sure you're, you know, at your best. And so whether it's buying a smartwatch or, and, you know, going out for a walk, you know, do what you can because, you know, we're not promised tomorrow."-Mike Gomez, Apple Watch wearer
Gomez did the right thing and instead of ignoring the notifications, he went to the doctor and it was a good thing he did. After the examination, the doctor told him that he was in serious atrial fibrillation. Luckily, the doctors were able to get the treatment he needed. Gomez was told that had he not made the appointment when he did, he could have suffered a life-ending stroke.
Mike wasn't the only person to learn a lesson from the incident. Gomez's daughter Jazmin said, "That definitely opened my eyes on how I need to spend more time with them, and I definitely appreciate them a lot more for everything they do."
The Apple Watch, when it was first released in April 2015, was hyped by Apple as fashion jewelry. But over the years, as users like Mike Gomez used the health tools to save their lives, the timepiece became more of a lifesaving tool that could be worn on users' wrists. It should be pointed out (which is why I'm doing it now) that many other smartwatches have the same functions and capabilities of the Apple Watch and saving lives is not limited to Apple's timepiece.
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