Apple Watch Saves 13-Year Old by Detecting Abnormally High Heart Rate

The Apple Watch comes with a host of features including messaging, calling and fitness tracking for users. Recently, the smartwatch by Cupertino-based tech manufacturer came to the rescue of a woman in Oklahoma who got to know about her 13-year-old son's abnormally high heart rate. Skylar Joslin, a middle school student, was sitting in his classes when the Apple Watch that was tied around his wrist detected a heart of 190 beats-per-minute. According to a report by KFOR-TV, an Oklahoma based news channel, Skylar was attending his regular classes in his school in April of 2018, when he suddenly received an "alarming notification" on his two-week-old Apple Watch.

"I got a text message along with a screenshot of his heart rate that was 190,” Skylar's mother Liz was quoted as saying. Liz further said that the text message that she received from her son mentioned Skylar saying that "there's something wrong" and that he isn't doing anything. Skylar said he was worried and that the Apple smartwatch he was wearing was saying something was wrong with his heart.

Liz rushed to Skylar's school, picked him up and drove him to the emergency room. His heart rate peaked at 202 bpm during the 14-minute drive to the hospital. Skylar's heart rate further rose to 280 bpm during his stay in the hospital until his heart surgery. Doctors then diagnosed Skylar suffering from supraventricular tachycardia, or SVT, a disease that forces the heart to speed up and gradually weaken a person's heart, the report said.

Skylar underwent a seven-and-a-half hour cardiac ablation to help fix his heart’s rhythm. Skylark family says they are amazed that bought an Apple Watch for their son that has helped them find out about his heartbeat going up faster than normal. Liz said that if she would not have got the Apple Watch for Skylar then she would not have known about her son's health trouble.

Last year, researchers of Stanford University School of Medicine presented preliminary results of the Apple Heart Study and mentioned that the wearable device can detect heart rate irregularities, which on subsequent testing were found to be atrial fibrillation, which causes strokes.