Kimmie Watkins has her Apple Watch to thank for helping discover a potentially life-threatening blood clot in her lungs while she was asleep.
Apple Watches are capable of measuring users’ heart rates throughout the day and takes notice when the wearer’s heart rate is elevated when they are not being active. This feature is available to all Apple Watch users and is one of the device’s cornerstones.
When the 29-year-old took a nap after feeling lightheaded, her Apple Watch detected a heartbeat of 178 beats per minute, which triggered an alert that woke her up.
Thankfully for Watkins, she was able to seek immediate medical attention where she was informed that she had a saddle pulmonary embolism, a type of blood clot in the lungs that limits blood flow and has a 50 percent fatality rate.
Apple Watches contain a whole slew of health-related features such as the ability to conduct ECG tests, spot irregular heart rates, fall detection and even show users their blood oxygen levels.
A full overview of healthcare on Apple Watches, including which models are capable of certain features can be found here.
Image credit: Apple
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