Apple Watch Alerts Man to Heart Condition in Yet Another Potentially Life-Saving Story

[MacRumors]

February is American Heart Month, and Apple marked the occasion today with a Newsroom feature highlighting how the Apple Watch potentially saved the life of 59-year-old Bob March. In short, the Apple Watch alerted March to irregular heart rate readings that ultimately led to doctors discovering that he had arrhythmia.

Bob and Lori March​

Bob was gifted the Apple Watch by his wife Lori for their anniversary. "We truly believe that it saved his life," she said. "It doesn't get any bigger than that."

The story:

Bob, a former college-level athlete who also ran half marathons as an adult, immediately started exploring his new Apple Watch. He discovered the Heart Rate app and though he was relaxed, his first reading showed 127 beats per minute. That was high for Bob, but he brushed it off as a fluke.

"I thought, 'this is nuts,'" Bob says. "If I was easing into a run, or cooling down, I'd definitely be hitting numbers like that."

Later that day, Bob and Lori noticed more erratic heart rate readings. "I started running and it started going down but then it would come back up. So that's when I realized something may not be right here."

The couple saw similar patterns over the next few days, prompting Lori to schedule an appointment for a routine physical.

"I figured the doctor would tell me to practice breathing, try yoga, cut back on sodium or something of that sort," says Bob. "Instead, 10 minutes after meeting with me, he had me in an ambulance headed to the ER."

Doctors found an arrhythmia, which caused Bob's heart to work in overdrive. They said it was like he had been running a constant marathon for the past few weeks and if left unchecked, the results could have been devastating.

March ultimately underwent successful heart surgery, and after a few months, he is now thankful to be back to running alongside his dog. It's yet another example of how the Apple Watch's health features potentially saved a life.

Article Link: Apple Watch Alerts Man to Heart Condition in Yet Another Potentially Life-Saving Story

 

[chodges]

This is awesome. Glad Bob’s okay now and if there was ever a reason for wearing a smart watch......

 

[Rychiar]

mine has def alerted me to a lot of heart issues

 

[McKodiak]

I've been doing the Apple Fitness+ rowing workouts everyday since the beginning of December. For the most part, I was fairly sedentary. I was tracking my max heart rate using the Apple Watch. After a recent night's sleep, I was shocked that I had an alert that my heart rate dipped below 40bpm, to 39bpm for 10 minutes. I was a bit concerned but basically found out my heart was getting stronger from all the rowing which has me having a lower resting and sleeping heart rate.

 

[Taz Mangus]

With all the death that is happening now as a result of COVID, really nice to see a story like this one where technology is saving lives.

 

[Rudy69]

Mine keeps telling me my heart rate is too low when I sleep. Been to the doctor and doing a bunch of test but everything is looking 'ok' so far

 

[yaxomoxay]

As someone with heart issues, this is a great story! Can't wait to see how many health features will have the AW in 10 years.

Current BPM: 66.

 

[AppleInLVX]

Due to other known issues, my cardiologist told me to ignore the irregular heart rate warnings from the watch. I was getting a lot of false-positives that the watch was incorrectly reading. So I turned the whole feature off because it was making me paranoid. Le sigh.

 

[casperes1996]

This kind of thing happens all the time. By noticing my heart rate averages changing dramatically over the span of two months I myself found out I had an over-active thyroid and got put on medication for that Apple Watch helps out

 

[ghanwani]

Amazing story. Makes me want to get one, but I just don't like having gadgets on me.

 

[J___o___h___n]

This is awesome. Definitely a reason I wear mine daily.

 

[Jarman74]

The health features of every new model make it easy to upgrade to the latest and greatest every year. Collectively they make for the "killer app" the Apple Watch was looking for since its inception.

 

[melgross]

I don’t know how these particular people get picked, or even known. Over two years ago, my watch alerted me to a problem. I ended up in the hospital, and I was told that if it weren’t for the warning my watch gave me, I could have had a heart attack around two days later.

i also had a catheter, and a couple of days after I got home, with that, my watch again alerted me. I had developed sepsis, so back in the hospital for another week. My specialist said that one more day, and I might not have survived.

i didn’t send a note to Apple about this, and I don’t know how people get selected. But I can pretty much say without question, that far more people are saved by their watches than we ever hear about.

the only thing I’m skeptical about is the fall detection. I had to turn mine off in my Series 5, and now in the 6. I can be standing or sitting, doing nothing involving much movement, and it will come on, so I have to tap that I didn’t fall, so it doesn’t ring emergency services. I don’t understand what the problem is, because when it first came out, people tested it, in the gym and elsewhere, and didn’t trigger it.

 

[DelayedGratificationGene]

Awesome story!

 

[jwh49]

The Apple Watch is exactly what alerted me to my high heart rate while sleeping leading to my diagnosis of A-Fib over a year ago. When I told another doctor about this just a month ago, he said that I was the 2nd person THAT WEEK who told him that.

 

[TheYayAreaLiving 🎗️]

Stories like this makes Apple a very unique and special company.

 

[BeefCake 15]

Mine keeps telling me my heart rate is too low when I sleep. Been to the doctor and doing a bunch of test but everything is looking 'ok' so far

Are you very active with good cardio? Athletes usually have lower HR than normal due to strength of their heart.

 

[b13o0r12e3]

The Apple product I once trashed the most is now the Apple product I advocate the most.

 

[davidg4781]

I've been doing the Apple Fitness+ rowing workouts everyday since the beginning of December. For the most part, I was fairly sedentary. I was tracking my max heart rate using the Apple Watch. After a recent night's sleep, I was shocked that I had an alert that my heart rate dipped below 40bpm, to 39bpm for 10 minutes. I was a bit concerned but basically found out my heart was getting stronger from all the rowing which has me having a lower resting and sleeping heart rate.

Did you have to buy a rowing equipment? I haven’t looked at Apple Fitness so maybe I’m off base.

I started going to the gym recently and noticed my heart rate is in the 70s now. Since I was a teen, it’s always been high 80s, low 90s. I’ve been doing 30 minutes on an elliptical, 2-4 times a week.

 

[aliensporebomb]

It's interesting that little changes in health will show up on your ECG. When I first got my Apple Watch series 5 I was actually sick with the flu and my ECG looked terrible - you could actually see it looked weird and it was being affected.
Later everything looked normal ever since. I'm a cyclist and have ridden bicycles frequently since my teen years and
my resting heard rate is in the low 50s but trying the ECG out during different conditions - you really can see subtle
changes if you're sick or not rested well or under stress. Of late I've been Zwifting (stationary bike app) and the
results in the heart rate mean better overall conditioning.

 

[julesme]

When we look back in 2035, 2040, etc, I believe health / fitness will increasingly be seen as Tim Cook's greatest contribution to Apple and to society. It sounds far-fetched today, but may be obvious looking back, especially if thousands (or more) lives are saved by the watch in areas of heart health, diabetes, etc.

 

[Nicky G]

Wow, amazing to see that even here on the Macrumors forum, multiple folks have had successful and very important, likely life-saving health interventions due to their Apple Watches! Quite amazing, and thanks to all of you for sharing your stories.

I had a fairly anomalous minor heart attack in Feb. '19 (on Valentine's Day of all days, ha!) that was at least triggered by over-doing it on my Peloton bike. I now wear my Apple Watch more-or-less all the time (other than sleeping and showering/bathing) and I am definitely checking my heart rate on it throughout my workouts!

I do wish they had a mechanism to detect heart attacks, although I'm not even sure if this is technically and biologically possible. I can't even imagine how many more people would be saved every year if this were one of the features. My understanding is that MANY heart attacks every year are not caught/noticed, and thus not treated. I wouldn't have gone to the hospital for mine, had a client of mine on a call a couple hours later basically demanded that I go! (Thanks John!) It would be great if the Apple Watch could alert one to such events.

 

[McKodiak]

Did you have to buy a rowing equipment? I haven’t looked at Apple Fitness so maybe I’m off base.

I started going to the gym recently and noticed my heart rate is in the 70s now. Since I was a teen, it’s always been high 80s, low 90s. I’ve been doing 30 minutes on an elliptical, 2-4 times a week.

I had purchased a rowing machine last February. I didn't it use as much as I intended. I read that forming good rowing technique was important. I would on and off use it to try to learn the technique. Wasn't until Apple Fitness+ workouts did I take it seriously. Here is the change in my resting heart rate over the last year. You can see the affect of rowing everyday for the past two months.

 

[Nicky G]

When we look back in 2035, 2040, etc, I believe health / fitness will increasingly be seen as Tim Cook's greatest contribution to Apple and to society. The statement sounds far-fetched today, but could be seem obvious looking back, especially if thousands (or more) lives are saved by Apple Watch.

I think that's a very reasonable observation. Of course, we don't yet know what's coming in terms of AR/VR and autonomous cars, so who knows! However, I have a feeling by 2035 or 2040, the world will be so different in many ways, we may not find ourselves "looking back" much at all, because so much will be keeping us busy in the present (climate change is likely going to be in the "people are freaking out" phase by 2040, methinks).

 

[PSeg90]

I am almost NEVER able to complete a full 30 second ECG test. I've tried testing it by being completely still with my arm flat on a table but I guess I jitter too much to get through the countdown.