The mother of an 18-year-old woman from Lithia, Florida, said an Apple Watch recently saved her daughter’s life by alerting the teenager of a spiked heart rate.
Deanna Recktenwald was attending church April 22, when out of nowhere, she was notified her resting heart rate had shot up to 160 beats per minute, according to ABC News.
Soon after realizing the bpm far exceeded the recommended rate of around 60 to 100, Recktenwald’s mom, Stacey, rushed her to a local hospital.
“It was scary because she was just sitting there,” the mother, a registered nurse, said. “She wasn’t doing anything. It wasn’t like she was running around. She was just standing there, and it spiked up to 190.”
Deanna was also perplexed, especially since “the only symptom” she felt she was experiencing was being short-winded.
Eventually, Deanna was sent to the emergency room where she was told she had kidney failure. She now has permanent kidney damage and will likely require a new organ in the coming years, Stacey said, according to ABC News.
While many worry about the advent of advanced technology like wearables — particularly as privacy concerns steadily percolate — Deanna’s Apple Watch shows the significant benefits of constant monitoring.
“I am forever grateful to Apple for developing such an amazing lifesaving product,” Stacey wrote in an email to Apple CEO Tim Cook, ABC News reported. “If it wasn’t for her Apple watch alarming her about her HR, we wouldn’t have discovered her kidney issue. I honestly feel that your Apple Watch has saved my daughter’s life.” (RELATED: Tech CEO: We May Soon Be Able To Spot ‘Cancer Several Months Before It Occurs’)
Apple has reportedly been in talks with Aetna, a prominent health insurance company, to see if having a smart watch can be covered by certain plans. The tech giant is also working with Stanford Medicine to study the heart in different, new ways.
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