Apple has apparently launched the Apple Watch as an extension to the iPhone, where the primary motive of the watch was to be an accessory that notifies its users for their calls and messages in combination with the iPhone. The Apple Watch later became a personal fitness tracker, which tracks heart rate status, a number of steps a users’ taking and similar other activity and health records. The watch used to gather all this data of the user and analyse through the health app on the Apple devices and would suggest the user about his activity accordingly.
A report from the South China Morning Post stated that the Apple watch had saved a 76-year old man from having a heart attack by notifying his heart rate when it had suddenly hiked from the normal. As stated in the report, a man named Gaston D’Aquino in Hong Kong had attended a mass at the church, before finishing the prayer, he had his Apple Watch alarm going off. The watch actually alerted Gaston about his elevated heart-rate after which he immediately went to a hospital to make sure that this isn’t normal as he didn’t witness any pain or anxiety in his chest.
"I told the doctor I don't know why I'm here, but my watch tells me I have an elevated heart rate," said D'Aquino. "He says, 'Are you feeling anything?' I said no, I feel fine, I'm feeling all right, nothing's wrong," stated in the report.
The doctors later decided to test him on an electrocardiograph (ECG) machine, which further indicated something was wrong. Later, doctors conducted some more tests and discovered that the Gaston’s two out of three main heart’s coronary arteries were blocked completely. And, the third was also 90 per cent blocked, which literally means that the man is at risk of getting a fatal heart attack. After all the necessary tests, doctors had decided to go for an angioplasty with Gaston, which is a process to restore blood to the heart by implanting tiny stents in clogged or blocked arteries. After being sent home after the angioplasty, Gason stated the following day that, "it went well and I'm feeling much, much better."
"Having a new lease of life is a good thing," he said. "You wake up the next morning and you look around you, everything looks more beautiful. It's a great feeling; you're on a high for a few days. That feeling is something special," he stated.
Later, Gason being thankful to the Apple Watch and the company, he has sent an email to the Apple’s CEO Tim Cook saying, "this was the first time that my watch alert had ever gone off, but I was not feeling anything, no dizziness or pain" and added that "in short, I was a walking time bomb."
"Please continue promoting the use of the Apple Watch for anyone with cardiac problems. I lost a cousin two weeks ago to a massive heart attack, and if he had an Apple Watch, he might have had the same opportunity I got – to live."
Tim Cook has also replied saying he was "so glad" to hear that D'Aquino is doing well now. "I appreciate you taking the time to share your story. It inspires us to keep pushing."
However, this is not the first time that Apple Watch has been saving lives. This incident seems to be the third one in the month of April, earlier reports suggest, an 18-year-old Deanna Recktenwald's Apple Watch monitor has caught a previously undiagnosed kidney disease, who was a resident of Tampa. The other incident was a 32-year-old William Monzidelis, who was a resident of New York, and he received a medical treatment for unusual bleeding after his monitor went off as well. Recktenwald also wrote an email to Cook to share his story.
