This Woman Is Alive Because of Apple

Once again the Apple Watch comes through, with a report of a woman in Fairhope, Alabama who was facing a life-threatening medical condition that had gone undiagnosed until she received an Apple Watch Series 4 as a gift.

As reported by FOX10 News, Anne Rowe had been diagnosed with asthma many years ago, and regularly found herself feeling tired and short of breath, to the point where she said she couldn’t even walk around her house without having to stop and catch her breath.

For a long time, she simply thought her asthma was getting worse, however after getting an Apple Watch Series 4 as a Christmas gift from her husband, she decided to give the ECG app a try and began getting notifications that she was in atrial fibrillation (AFib).

Although she didn’t believe it at first, she eventually decided to visit her doctor, who confirmed with an EKG that she was indeed suffering from AFib, with an irregular heart rate and poor blood flow.

It was a stroke waiting to happen and I had no clue.

After having open heart surgery to replace her mitral valve, Rowe is now recovering well and has a regular heart rhythm, and adds that she has no question that the Apple Watch saved her life, as she would have otherwise simply assumed it was her asthma and never sought further diagnoses.

As Rowe mentioned in the interview, the Apple Watch “turned out to be a really, really good gift.”

A Tim Cook Connection

As 9to5Mac’s Zac Hall points out, there’s another interesting twist to this as well — Rowe’s home of Fairhope, Alabama is only 13 miles away from where Tim Cook grew up, and based on their ages it’s entirely possible they even both lived in the area at the same time, years ago.

The Apple Watch Saves Lives

Of course, this isn’t the first time the ECG feature on the new Apple Watch Series 4 has saved someone’s life. Last Christmas a Virginia man who had never even heard of AFib and was otherwise healthy was prompted to seek diagnosis when his new Apple Watch repeatedly alerted him to the condition, and we’ve heard similar stories from marathon runners and other individuals who would seem to be in good health, so it’s a problem that can affect anybody.

While the ECG feature on the new Series 4 is great for detecting AFib, Apple’s wearable actually has a much longer history of alerting users to dangerous medical conditions simply due to unusual heart rates, such as the 2015 story of a high school football player with the original Apple Watch, and this Florida teen who was alerted to impending kidney failure.

In addition to the heart features, there’s also the Fall Detection found in the Apple Watch Series 4, which recently helped awoman suffering from epilepsy, and has even saved people in car crashes by automatically calling emergency services after an accident. Further, any cellular-capable model of the Apple Watch can act as a lifeline by allowing you to call emergency services even when you’re stranded in the middle of a lake, and even without paying for a cellular plan.

Apple’s not stopping there, either, with the company continuing to study new ways in which the Apple Watch can diagnose even more medical conditions and potentially save lives and improve quality of life by doing things such asdetecting early signs of dementia and incorporating sleep tracking.

Although we haven’t heard many rumours about what kind of new features it’s going to include, Apple is expected to debut the Apple Watch Series 5 next month, but it seems likely we’ll see improvements in the health, fitness, and safety features of the wearable.