Apple Watch heart beatSource: iMore

What you need to know

  • A woman posted to a forum to say an Apple Watch saved her life.
  • The watch noticed an unusually high heart rate.
  • She was suffering from a low hemoglobin count and needed a blood transfusion.

The ability of Apple Watch to save lives is something that we wouldn't have believed when the very first one was announced in 2015. But five years later it seems like a month can't go by without a story about a watch alerting someone about an undiagnosed problem. The latest involves a woman who needed a blood transfusion but didn't know it yet.

According to BabyCenter forum member "Crispynoodles," her Apple Watch alerted her to an unusually high heart rate. Around three times its usual 55 beats-per-minute, in fact.

Last week I felt dizzy and my Apple Watch alerted me that my heart rate was unusually high. Like, 158. I'm usually around 55/60. This happened a few more times and chalked it up to anxiety.

But there was more to it than a bout of anxiety, and when the Apple Watch wearer made an appointment to have some blood work done, she found out exactly what was wrong. And what needed to be done to correct it.

I made an appointment with my dr who ordered bloodwork. Bloodwork comes back and my hemoglobin is in the deadly range. It's a 5.2 and anything 7 or below is life threatening.

im at the Hospital now getting a blood transfusion for the first time in my life.

It's possible that this need for a transfusion would have gone unnoticed for a longer period of time if the Apple Watch hadn't noticed something wasn't right. And according to "Crispynoodles," she didn't even want the thing in the first place.

To think, I was opposed to getting an Apple watch but hubby didn't know what else to get me for Xmas, so I guess totally worth it right?

Still, all's well that ends well.