A 22-week pregnant woman suffering from blood clots in her lungs was able to avoid the worst thanks to her smartwatch, which alerted her when her resting heart rate became abnormally high.
“I was really tired and out of breath, but that’s what I expected with my second pregnancy. As I walked up the stairs to my apartment, I had trouble breathing,” Rebecca McManus, 24, said in an interview with the Daily Record on Thursday.
The young mother from Clydebank, near Glasgow in Scotland, who has asthma and is 22 weeks pregnant, had not brought up her symptoms by the end of April.
But while sitting on her couch, the young woman was told by her Apple smartwatch that her heart rate had been exceeding 140 beats per minute (BPM) for at least 10 minutes, as if she was about to collapse while exercising, she continued.
At rest, an adult’s heart rate is normally between 60 and 100 beats per minute, English-language media reported based on data from the English National Health System (NHS).
“I didn’t believe it until I got up and felt dizzy. My heart rate went up to 154 beats per minute,” she added.
She was soon rushed to the hospital, where doctors ran some tests before sending her home and telling her the symptoms were being brought on by the baby, who was said to be pressing on her diaphragm.
However, seeing her heart rate continue to accelerate over the following days, the Scot returned to hospital, where new tests discovered two potentially deadly blood clots in her lungs.
Still, in gratitude for her smartwatch, without which she “would not have realized the danger she faced”, the woman plans to make a formal complaint against Greater Glasgow and Clyde NHS, she angrily added to the Daily Record.
“It saved my life,” she continued to English media. It’s ridiculous that I was sent home and told I was “just pregnant”. I could have died in a few months thinking my symptoms were just due to my pregnancy. A blood clot can kill you, and I’ve had two of them.”