What you need to know
- Apple Watch appears to have saved another life.
- A Kentucky woman credits her watch with alerting her of a heart condition.
- This is one of many stories where the Apple Watch has served as a guardian of health.
A Kentucky woman is crediting her Apple Watch with alerting her to get her heart checked after it detected she may be suffering from Atrial Fibrillation.
Reported by WHAS11, an ABC affiliate, Rosemary Stiles had received the Apple Watch as a Christmas gift from her boyfriend in 2018. She had wanted the Apple Watch so she could check in on her kids without having to text and drive.
Over the course of last year, Stiles began to suffer from low energy without much explanation.
"I felt tired, I was run down ... I had no energy. I would get up in the mornings and I could do a little bit of stuff around the house but then after a few minutes, I would have to go sit down in a chair, and it wouldn't be long before I would fall asleep."
One day last May, Stiles fell asleep and woke up to a notification from her Apple Watch that it had detected Atrial Fibrillation. "I just fell asleep in my chair and my watch vibrated," said Stiles. "When I looked at it, it said that it had detected A-Fib and I needed to see a doctor."
"I feel like I was blessed," said Stiles. "I think someone upstairs was trying to keep me alive a little while longer. I've got more of a purpose here of something later on down the road."
The Apple Watch Series 4 and Apple Watch Series 5 are both capable of taking an Electrocardiogram and also monitors your heartbeat in the background, which helps detect an irregular heartbeat. Stiles' story is the latest in a long series of reports where an Apple Watch health feature helped to alert someone to see a doctor, or emergency services to locate someone in distress.
Joe Wituschek is a Contributor at iMore. With over ten years in the technology industry, one of them being at Apple, Joe now covers the company for the website. In addition to covering breaking news, Joe also writes editorials and reviews for a range of products. He fell in love with Apple products when he got an iPod nano for Christmas almost twenty years ago. Despite being considered a "heavy" user, he has always preferred the consumer-focused products like the MacBook Air, iPad mini, and iPhone 13 mini. He will fight to the death to keep a mini iPhone in the lineup. In his free time, Joe enjoys video games, movies, photography, running, and basically everything outdoors.
