My Apple Watch saved my life: 5 people share their stories

No one noticed that Toralv Østvang fell and hit his head on the bathroom floor that night, except for his Apple Watch. Kacie Anderson used her watch to get out of her car after a near-fatal accident left her and her 9-month-old baby trapped inside. The only warning sign Heather Hendershot had that something was very wrong with her body came from her wrist.

These stories and more have a common thread. In September 2014, when Apple CEO Tim Cook introduced the first Apple Watch, he was not exaggerating when he said it was the most personal device the company had created. Since its launch, the Apple Watch has become a fitness trainer, a health monitor, and a constant way to stay connected. And for some users, it has been much more.

For these people, it even changed their lives.

Toralv Østvang, 68, Oslo, Norway

Veteran technical reporter Torav Østvang has tested its quota of Apple devices, but none has left more of an imprint than the Apple Watch.

In February 2019, Østvang was staying with friends outside of Oslo, Norway, where he lives. When he went to bed just after midnight, he wore his Apple Watch Series 4 to be able to test a sleeping application. He does not remember his fall later that night or how he returned to his bed.

“The first thing I remember was lying in bed, having a terrible headache,” says Østvang. “I touched my face and I felt blood. “ He entered and passed out until he woke up in a lighted room and three policemen standing above him.

Around 4 in the morning, she had gotten up to go to the bathroom when she experienced a sudden drop in blood pressure. He passed out and landed face down on the bathroom floor. Its collapse triggered the fall detection feature on Apple Watch (a new feature in Series 4), which automatically notifies emergency services if you don’t notice any movement after a minute of detecting a sharp drop.

“No one heard my fall,” he says. “My friend and his wife heard nothing about it until the police car arrived at their door.”

After receiving the alert, the local police contacted his wife, who was able to give them the full address of where her husband was staying.

“They could see the GPS coordinates of where I was, but they couldn’t see exactly what department I was in,” says Østvang.

They immediately took him to a nearby hospital. He suffered three fractures to his face and pressed on the chin bone. Although he is cautious in saying that the Apple Watch saved his life, he admits that it saved him from needing surgery.

“They say it was important to get to the hospital as soon as possible,” says Østvang. “The call and the police made that happen very quickly.”

Kacie Anderson, 26, Fort Lauderdale, Florida

It was the peak of rush hour on a rainy Friday night in Maryland, just a few days before Christmas. Kacie Anderson was on her way home with her 9-month-old son Parker in the back seat when she stopped at a busy intersection along the highway. Her husband was only a few cars behind her.

“I was actually looking out the window when I suddenly felt this great force on the left side,” says Anderson. “My face hit the steering wheel, it came back, it hit the front of my headrests, and then I was thrown back out of the side window.”

They had been hit by a drunk driver at 62 mph.

“The first thing that occurred to me was, ‘Is Parker okay?’ I could hear him screaming, “she says. “I could smell the gas leak in the car, but I couldn’t see anything.” She reached for her phone for help, but the crash had sent everything flying through the air and she couldn’t find it. As she searched, her hand collided with her wrist and she remembered that she was wearing her Apple Watch. She hit the digital crown and said, “Siri, call 911.”

By the time her husband arrived at the scene of the accident, the ambulance had already arrived. “They were able to say where it was, without me really knowing,” says Anderson. “I don’t know if anyone could have gotten close to the car, it’s a busy street.”

Kacie later wrote a letter to Tim Cook, thanking him for the Apple Watch that he credits for getting her out of that mess. She was contacted by Apple to present her story along with others in the Apple Watch Real Stories campaign video later that year.

Heather Hendershot, 27, Pomona, Kansas

At 26, Heather Hendershot did not believe that she had to worry about her health. She was young, athletic, and had no previous medical conditions.

After putting her children to bed one night, she was sitting on the sofa with her husband when she heard a beep on her Apple Watch. She looked down to see a notification saying that her heart rate was above 120 beats per minute.

“I thought the clock had to be wrong because I couldn’t feel my heart racing,” she says. “I didn’t feel like something was wrong at all.”

In 2017, Apple Watch added high heart rate notifications to the watch, which let users know when their hearts shot above a certain level. Although Hendershot’s heart rate continued to increase throughout the night, he still did not feel any symptoms. The next morning, her husband insisted that she make a precautionary visit to the urgent care clinic.

While there, they tested for strep and flu. Both were negative, but their heart rate was so high that they decided to follow her closely.

“It wasn’t until I heard the doctors mentioning the ICU that I realized how serious the whole situation was,” she says.

Doctors diagnosed him with hyperthyroidism, a condition in which the thyroid gland produces an excess of the hormone thyroxine. If left untreated, it could lead to life-threatening complications.

“I am not someone who checks your heart rate randomly,” says Hendershot. “So I’m pretty sure I couldn’t have detected it without the Apple Watch.”

Jason Saucier, 45 years old, Orlando, Florida

Jason Saucier hadn’t felt like him in a few weeks, but he didn’t know how serious he was until his Apple Watch raised the alarm.

“As soon as I put the watch on, it made a sound I had never heard before,” he says. “I looked down and said it was on a fiber.”

In addition to its high heart rate alert, the watch also tells you if it detects that your heart rate may be indicative of atrial fibrillation, a type of heart condition that can increase your risk of stroke and other serious heart complications.

He still went to work that morning, but continued to receive the same alert throughout the day. He also had trouble breathing, but it wasn’t until several of his coworkers mentioned that he looked like a white ghost that he finally decided to go to the emergency room.

“As soon as I got there, the heart team attacked me and said it was close to cardiac arrest,” says Saucier.

Doctors confirmed what the watch had been telling him: it was in a fiber. They kept him overnight in the hospital, but he came out of a Fibra and they were able to discharge him the next day.

Exactly a week later, the same notification appeared on his Apple Watch.

“I came home from work, I had dinner and I was sitting on my couch and I couldn’t catch my breath,” he says.

This time Saucier listened to his watch and immediately returned to the emergency room. He stayed on aFib for three days and kept him in the hospital for an additional two days as they monitored his response to a new heart medication.

He has not received any more alerts from his Apple Watch since that second episode in September 2019. He credits the new drug, but continues to use the Apple Watch to control his heart.

“It is like a security blanket,” he says. “I think it will probably be an ongoing thing for me for the rest of my life. And it’s good that I have this watch to help me monitor it.”

George Kometiani, 32, Brooklyn, New York

His weight had been dragging him for years, but it wasn’t until he was 30 that George Kometiani really felt that his nearly 300 pounds began to affect his health.

“It was difficult climbing the stairs, my knees started to snap due to the pressure,” he says. “And then there was the snoring.”

Her doctor at the time warned that if she did not lose 30 pounds, her snoring, which was affecting her sleep, would likely worsen and require medical intervention.

He decided to take on the challenge of losing weight. He started by changing his eating habits and substituting take-out food on his desk for healthier options, and as soon as he did, the pounds started to disappear. He was surprised at how quickly he lost the first 30 pounds, but he also lost muscle mass, which was not what he intended, and his snoring was not going to go away.

“This is when the Apple Watch came into operation,” he says.

Kometiani made a conscious effort to close her movement ring, the red circle on the watch that indicates the calories burned, every day, and began to pay attention to the exercise challenges that would appear on your screen. The day after a hard workout, for example, the Apple Watch would push him to match the success of the day before. Which he did, over and over again.

“It really helped me understand how much effort I needed to put into my day,” says Kometiani. “Those little things from a disconnected and non-judgmental point of view really help.”

Within a year of starting his health kick, Kometiani had lost 100 pounds. His snoring disappeared along with his other health problems: joint pain, back pain, headaches. And he was much happier.

“You don’t understand how many weight limitations you have around you … I couldn’t even ride a roller coaster,” he says. “Now I feel like I can do anything.”

Although these stories are just from the people I spoke to, a quick Google search would return dozens more like these. In September 2018, ZDNet writer Jason Perlow described his own experience with the Apple Watch after detecting that he was on a Fiber.

And I had my own minor health scare detected by Apple Watch. In October 2018, while I was testing the ECG function In Series 4 along with a medical EKG at the University of San Francisco Medical Center, both devices saw that I had an early heartbeat. While ultimately harmless, Dr. Gregory Marcus of UCSF Medical Center let me know that it is something I must keep in mind to move forward.

If you or someone you know has been affected by Apple Watch, share your story with us in the comment section below.