Jennifer Vazquez, NBC New York:
The 32-year-old Monzidelis was working at his family bowling alley business, Bowlerland, on April 3, when he became dizzy and went to the bathroom, where he started bleeding. He soon received an alarming notification via his smartwatch telling him to seek medical attention immediately.
And:
Doctors believe that if he hadn’t received his smartwatch notification when he did, he would have not survived his medical emergency because he wouldn’t have paid attention to his symptoms, especially since he was a healthy individual up to that point.
Monzidelis agreed: “I would have been working in my office and they would have found me dead,” he said, adding that he is “very lucky” and “feeling like a million bucks” since the life-threatening and frightening incident.
If you started bleeding, would you head right to the emergency room? Maybe I would, maybe I’d first do some research on my symptoms, or call someone seeking advice.
I think one subtle core point here is that a notification from your Apple Watch to seek medical attention immediately feels like an alarming call to action from a trusted expert. In some ways, Apple Watch is like the Check Engine light on your car. If it comes on, you pay attention (though, some folks do ignore it). If your Apple Watch tells you to seek immediate medical attention, go immediately.
I’ve never read a story about someone’s Apple Watch telling them to seek immediate medical attention that turned out to be a false alarm. That Check Engine light generally means something.
UPDATE: From the comments:
One point that I think is valuable here is to call 9-1-1 instead of taking yourself to the ER. Calling for Emergency Medical Services gets immediate treatment faster than going to an ER where one can easily lose consciousness or having worsening symptoms while en route.
Solid point.
“If you started bleeding, would you head right to the emergency room?”
If I started profusely bleeding from my ass?
Mine gave me a warning last month about my heart rate going over 110 without any significant movement on my part for the previous 10 minutes. After major heart surgery last Fall, that made me pay attention. But then I realized it was just my Afib flaring up, but I have the oblation clip on my heart, so no worries. Good to know though that it was happening and my watch is paying attention. I would NEVER go outside without it. Can’t wait to pick of a Gen 4 watch.
After shaving? Nope.
Solid point. Elevated it to the main post. Appreciate this, and all the comments. Part of what I do love about the Loop community. We have our arguments sometimes, but somehow rise above trolling, at least for the most part.
— Dave
While I concur, the article states that he was driven.
At the same time, the article also states that he claims he lost “80%” of his blood (which I’m pretty sure is not survivable without active transfusion) so he probably would have benefitted from an ambulance.
Unfortunately, it’s not a work of journalistic genius, so it’s not particularly clear what actually happened.
Not a good metaphor, though.
The CEL means something is wrong with the emissions system, not that your engine is in dire need of maintenance.
In most cases you can safely ignore it without equipment damage for quite some time, or indefinitely.
(Especially if it’s e.g. a loose fuel filler cap.)
The oil pressure light or the message saying “shut the car down and call a tow truck” (exact wording varies by manufacturer) is the better comparison.
More specifically, you’d love to see an example of the notification? On account of if you see it yourself…. yeah, well… you don’t seem self-injurious.
🙂
Love is the wrong word, I think. Rather, I’m curious because I’ve never seen my watch tell me to seek immediate medical attention, and it sounds like that’s literally what happened here. Until these articles came out I didn’t even know such a notification existed.
Dave,
Thank you for this article.
One point that I think is valuable here is to call 9-1-1 instead of taking yourself to the ER. Calling for Emergency Medical Services gets immediate treatment faster than going to an ER where one can easily lose consciousness or having worsening symptoms while en route.
Best wishes!
If the blood loss was as catastrophic and sudden as he describes, I’d expect to see a massive spike, waaaay over 120 bpm, as the heart tries to compensate for such a loss of blood pressure.
Dave,
You are welcome! I am a daily reader of The Loop because I appreciate what you guys write about and that the people who reply are **not** trolls!
All the best!
Hi!
Thanks for the reply. This is still a case of 9-1-1 being preferred. How can a person driving help you if you lose consciousness in an emergency situation. Paramedics/EMTs can do that as the ambulance transports the person in crisis.
All the best to you!
I’m curious about this specific notification. While it was obviously life-saving and useful, I’m surprised it isn’t considered giving medical advice and requires some sort of certification. Maybe there is some sort of exemption for extremely obvious situations? (It should be noted, I’m not advocating that this shouldn’t have been possibly without the certification, I just seem to recall reading that Apple was having to tread that line carefully already, before the watch could give these kind of notices).
Absolutely. He even said in the article that it took 30 minutes to get to the hospital. That’s a heckuva lotta time he could have been receiving professional medical care.
Good point. I’ll note the Watch appears to have two different notifications around this, too, one more immediate than the other.
There’s the “your heart rate was elevated while resting” without any further advice. I’ve gotten this during a nightmare (when my heart rate jumps to 120 or so for a brief period and I wake up thumping), once every few months, only at night.
Based on the article, this seems to be a much bigger spike, with specific advice to seek medical attention? I’m curious to see the notification screen for this, I’ve never seen it.
… interestingly, if you search for “apple watch nightmare” someone’s written an app to help you break out of nightmares if you get a lot of them!
https://night-ware.com
We live in a time with amazing technology. I’d imagine someone susceptible to recurring nightmares/PTSD might want to try this out (once it gets out of FDA trials).
Good day!
Again, thank you for your reply.
May your wisdom spread to all the people around you…
Cheers!