A woman from Costa Mesa says the alert pushed her to go to the hospital.
A pregnant woman from Costa Mesa, California claimed her Apple Smartwatch saved her life during a medical emergency.
“I literally thought I was going to die,” Jess Kelly said. “There were so many doctors and stuff in there.”
Kelly was 37 weeks pregnant when the incident happened.
“I had been laying in bed … not feeling well. I didn’t know if it was my morning sickness coming back my third trimester or if it was because I was getting my son’s stomach flu,” Kelly said. “And so, I wasn’t doing any sort of activity, so I thought it was really odd that it was telling me my heart rate was going over 120 beats per minute.”
Her Apple Watch sent her an alert that her heart rate skyrocketed to above 120 beats per minute. Kelly said she received two more notifications regarding her high heart rate over a 30 minute period.
“By the third time I thought “Something is going on” and maybe I should get this looked into,” Kelly said.
The woman decided to go to the hospital out of an abundance of caution. When she arrived, doctors informed her she was suffering from a placental abruption. A placental abruption is when the placenta breaks off from the inner wall of the uterus before birth. Kelly was also in labor. Doctors said she was losing blood quickly.
Despite this, her baby girl, Shelby Marie, was born three hours later.
“If I had not listened to the watch I would have stayed home and instead of celebrating her one month of birth we could of possibly been planning, or my husband could have been planning services for either myself, Shelby or maybe even both of us,” Kelly said.
Dr. Brian Kim, a medical professional with Providence St. Jude Medical Center, explained that an accelerated heart rate could stem from a number of factors. Those could include anxiety and dehydration.
Kim also emphasized that it is important to pay attention to alerts sent from Apple Watches.
“I think that you can actually save your life by basically following your body and the rhythm from the Apple Watch,” he said. “If there’s something wrong I think that you should see a doctor immediately.”
Kelly agrees, advising anyone else who may be receiving messages like she did to not ignore them.
“Listen to it. It’s not just a text message, help you find your phone alert,” Kelly said. “It’s to pay attention to it and listen to your body.”
