Apple Watch Alerts Man to Life-Threatening Heart Problem

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“When Ed Dentel updated his Apple Watch on Thursday night, he didn’t expect it to upend his weekend, much less change his life,” Soo Youn reports for ABC News. “The 46-year-old communications consultant from Richmond, Virginia, does taekwondo with his family three times a week, bikes and skis frequently, and had no history of heart problems.”

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“He said he’d installed the software update with the electrocardiogram app to play around with it,” Youn reports. “‘The application on the launch sounded off right away with atrial fibrillation — not something I’ve ever heard of, but since I’m in pretty decent health and never had a problem before, I didn’t give it much thought. I figured something was glitchy, so I set everything down turned in for the night,’ Dentel told ABC News.”

“On Friday morning, over breakfast with his 7-year old daughter, he put his watch back on. ‘Right away: AFib. So I shut everything down and turned it back on and tried it again. Same result, same result, same result,’ he said. He asked his wife to try. Hers came back normal. Twice,” Youn reports. “‘I put it on my left wrist, on top, AFib. I put it on my left wrist, on the bottom, AFib. I switch to my right wrist. Same thing. So, starting to get a little bit alarmed here.’”

Touching the Apple Watch Series 4 Digital Crown completes the circuit and electrical signals across the heart are measured.

“Checking in, Dentel said he felt like a hypochondriac explaining that his watch told him something was wrong,” Youn reports. “But he was quickly given an EKG by a technician, who called for a doctor, who said, ‘Yup, you’re in AFib. This thing may have just saved your life.’”

Read more in the full article here.