Apple Watch may have saved another life after detecting AFib in Arizona woman

Apple Watch with heart (Image credit: iMore)

What you need to know

An Apple Watch may have saved another life after detecting AFib in a 70-year-old woman.
The watch warned that the wearer had a heart rate of 174.
Doctors later confirmed the condition.

Apple Watch might have saved another life after a 70-year-old woman in Arizona was alerted to a potential Atrial Fibrillation (AFib) situation. According to Yolie De Leon, she was just about to go for a walk when her heart warned her of the issue.

De Leon says that her Apple Watch reported a heart rate of 174, according to local reports spotted by AppleInsider.

Yolie De Leon says she was about to go for a walk back in June when she received an alert on her Apple Watch. The 70-year-old says the device had a message warning her to seek medical attention. "It said my heart rate was at 174. It said 'you are an AFib' and said 'call your doctor immediately'"

Apple Watch Afib Notification (Image credit: u/Merrick63)

After visiting her local hospital and undergoing tests, doctors told De Leon that the watch was correct — she had Atrial Fibrillation, a condition relating to an irregular heartbeat that can prove fatal if left untreated.

While the report doesn't mention which Apple Watch the woman was wearing, the ability to detect AFib has been around for a few years and is included in the upcoming Apple Watch Series 7, too. There's a school of thought that Apple Watch's health features are among its most important and that's something that is always difficult to disagree with when stories like this pop up.

Despite rumors suggesting the upcoming Apple Watch Series 7 won't gain any new health sensors, it's sure to be the best Apple Watch yet thanks to an increase in screen size and an all-new look. Apple is expected to announce the new watch within a matter of weeks.

Oliver Haslam has written about Apple and the wider technology business for more than a decade with bylines on How-To Geek, PC Mag, iDownloadBlog, and many more. He has also been published in print for Macworld, including cover stories. At iMore, Oliver is involved in daily news coverage and, not being short of opinions, has been known to 'explain' those thoughts in more detail, too. Having grown up using PCs and spending far too much money on graphics card and flashy RAM, Oliver switched to the Mac with a G5 iMac and hasn't looked back. Since then he's seen the growth of the smartphone world, backed by iPhone, and new product categories come and go. Current expertise includes iOS, macOS, streaming services, and pretty much anything that has a battery or plugs into a wall. Oliver also covers mobile gaming for iMore, with Apple Arcade a particular focus. He's been gaming since the Atari 2600 days and still struggles to comprehend the fact he can play console quality titles on his pocket computer.