With all the technology in modern medicine used to save lives, one unexpected device saved one young teen's life. Her Apple Watch. Deanna Recktenwald is a healthy, active teen that has participated in volleyball, cheerleading, and gymnastics from a young age. When her Apple Watch began to display her heart rate behaving oddly, she felt something was wrong.
Cause for concern
During her Sunday church service, Deanna noticed that her resting heart rate began to drop down to 60, rise to 140, drop back down, then spike all the way to 190. The Apple Watch alerted her that the spike was occurring while she sat still in a pew.
The results appeared abnormal since she was just sitting and not being active enough to raise her heart rate. Her mother, a registered nurse, checked Deanna's heart rate to see how accurate the readings were. The readings were spot on. The family took her to the nearest urgent care center to figure out what could be causing the sudden changes in her heart rate. After checking her blood pressure, which was 150/99, Deanna was rushed to Tampa Bay General Hospital.
Hospital results
The medical staff began immediately doing tests on Deanna to determine the cause of her erratic heart rate. Multiple tests including an EKG were performed on her and the results came back that she had more than a heart problem.
Doctors discovered an underlying issue that the family had not known about.
Doctors performed a biopsy and determined that Deanna suffered from a genetic condition, Alport syndrome, that causes progressive loss of kidney function. Although she was alerted in time to prevent any further damage, doctors still predict that she will need a kidney transplant within the next five years.
The whole family is being tested for the same condition.
Tim Cook responds
Deanna's mother was grateful for the watch and how it saved her daughter's life. Unable to find an email to personally thank anyone at Apple, she left a message at her local Apple store. The next day, she received an email back from Tim Cook, the CEO of Apple.
Not only did he send a personal email, he even took to Twitter to tweet about Deanna.
Stories like Deanna’s inspire us to dream bigger and push harder every day. https://t.co/O7xJ9n1MHg
— Tim Cook (@tim_cook) May 1, 2018
Both parents are thankful she had that watch on. Deanna starts college in August and her parents are at peace now that they are aware of her condition. Other than shortness of breath, she didn't know anything was wrong. Now her watch can alert her if something seems off again.
All credit is not given to Apple, though. Her father feels like there was more to her life being saved.
"It was a tool that saved her life, but we're a very Christian-based family," Deanna's father said.
"So, we know God had a hand in this too."
The future of watches
Could Apple be leading the way in terms of health-monitoring watches? The latest news for the next generation Apple Watch 3 indicates that it could be technology that would allow the device to read blood sugar levels without the use of needles. Apple is looking to the future of health monitoring to prevent more potential catastrophes like this. Knowing the benefits of these watches, will more people begin to wear them?
