Runner says the Apple Watch saved his life after violent fall

August 11, 2021

By Kim Komando

The Apple Watch is among the bestselling smartwatches in the world, and for good reason. Sure it carries the cachet that comes along with all Apple products, but beyond that, it’s a pretty darn good gadget.

Apple Watch is like a surrogate phone you wear on your wrist, as it can perform many smartphone functions for iPhone users. It can also communicate with other watches, take screenshots and remotely control your camera. Tap or click here for 10 neat features on your Apple Watch.

It turns out the Apple Watch may be more useful than anyone imagined. One man credits it with saving his life. Read on for the full story.

Not on my Watch

A Long Island man went to the hospital with severe abdominal pain. While there, Brandon Schneider went to use the bathroom, where he fell unconscious. He banged his head in the fall and had brain bleeding.

Brandon’s Apple Watch detected his fall, dialed 911 and sent notifications to his emergency contacts. Help arrived and Brandon was given CT scans, which revealed life-threatening hematomas. He had emergency surgery and regained consciousness four days later. Two days after that, he was discharged.

“I share my story, not for sympathy, but because I want to encourage every person who reads this to purchase an Apple Watch or if you have an Apple Watch to set up your emergency contacts,” Brandon told People.

How to enable fall detection on your Apple Watch

Series 4 and later Apple Watches can detect a hard fall while being worn. The feature taps your wrist, sounds an alarm and displays an alert. You can then choose to contact emergency services or dismiss the alert by pressing the Digital Crown, tapping Close, or I’m OK.

If your Apple Watch detects movement, it will wait for you to respond to the alert. If the watch detects that you haven’t moved in a minute, it will make the emergency call on its own.

Following the call, your watch notifies your emergency contacts that it detected a hard fall. It also lets them know where you are. The emergency contact information comes from your Medical ID.

To enable fall detection, open the Apple Watch app on your iPhone and tap the My Watch tab. Then tap Emergency SOS and turn Fall Detection on.

Tap or click here for more health-related Apple Watch tips.

Get your Watch here

You can purchase an Apple Watch from Amazon. Here is a great option, the Apple Watch Series 6.

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