Transcript for Man alerted to life-threatening problem on his Apple Watch
The apple watch feature that may have saved a man’s life detecting an AFib which an estimated 700,000 people have but don’t know it. Paula Faris is here with the story. Good morning to you, Paula. What a remarkable story. This watch was an anniversary gift. When he started wearing it he thought it was malfunctioning, when it continued to give him that same urgent message he finally went to see a doctor. 46-year-old Ed dentell is your average guy, a loving husband, father to his 7-year-old daughter who enjoys an active healthy life with his family. So overall, I mean, years old, in pretty good health, work out two, three nights a week, so I’m not an iron man triathlete but I try to stay in decent health and stay active. Reporter: But all of that nearly changed when the self-confessed gadget lover downloaded the ecg app, what we call an ekg on his series 4 apple watch. This new feature can indicate whether your heart rhythm shows signs of atrial fibrillation or AFib, a serious form of irregular heartbeats which can lead to strokes, blood clots, even heart attacks. As soon as it finished it came back and said atrial fibrillation. That’s odd. So I figured it’s just a glitch and tried it on my left wrist, on top. AFib. Right on top, AFib, AFib, AFib, I looked at it. Okay. Reporter: He went to urgent care where he was hooked up to an ekg machine. He kind of laughed. Do you own apple stock? No, I don’t. Okay, you may want to consider buying some. They may have saved your life at this point. Reporter: He shared these results from his tests. These spikes showing when he’s in AFib. This isn’t the first time the watch has saved a life. Deanna Rectenwald got an alert her heart rate went to 109 beats a minute. She found out she had chronic kidney disease. It can’t do anything. While it can detect irregular heartbeat it cannot alert people if they’re having a heart attack. Their ability to diagnose is limited. So the flip side is that there are no replacements for the regular health care that can be provided by the physician and other health care providers. Once again doctors stress this is not a substitute for seeing your physician, of course, there is a concern of a false sense of security but back to this watch, a couple of other features it can collect your vitals then send them to your doctor and any of you runners? Okay, so, no, if any of you are runners out there if you abruptly fall down and don’t respond within a minute it’ll alert emergency responders. Now that everybody we knows we don’t run. Ride a bike. But what it does, though, I got to say if you do have something like this, he kept putting it off. Don’t put it off. Better safe than sorry. Apple isn’t the only one. Other wearable devices can you have as well. Fitbit and Google collaborated this. Is the only one that provides the ekg but the fitbit version, that will also send vital signs to your doctor. None will make your coffee in the morning, though. Just want to throw that out there, yet. Yet. Thank you. Coming up, finding fido.
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