Long Island man credits Apple Watch for saving his life after serious fall

NEW YORK (WABC) – A man from Long Island credits his Apple Watch with saving his life after suffering a serious fall.

It’s a story ABC first saw in People magazine.

For Brandon Schneider, 25, being active is a way of life. In addition to horseback riding and hiking, Peloton sales specialist runs five to six times a week and has four marathons to his name.

Like countless other fitness enthusiasts, Schneider tracks health on his Apple Watch.

Recently, he said the watch does more than tell the time.

“I would definitely say the Apple Watch saved my life,” Schneider said.

Schneider says he decided to go to the hospital after suffering from severe abdominal pain for days.

“It felt unlike anything I’ve really experienced in the past, and I was in excruciating pain,” he said.

Accompanied by his father, Schneider went to the hospital emergency room on July 12. During the visit, he went to the toilet. He says he was only there for a few minutes when he lost consciousness.

“I remember washing my hands and thinking to myself that something was going to happen,” said Schneider. “I don’t remember falling to the ground, or hitting my head, or anything from the events that followed.”

Fortunately, for fitness enthusiasts, Schneider says within seconds his Apple Watch alerted his nearby dad.

“My Apple Watch detected a sharp drop and I did not respond to the similar haptic message which requires a response and 45 seconds,” Schneider said.

Due to the alert, his father immediately put the hospital staff on his side.

“I was actually more in the right place at the right time for this kind of situation to happen,” he said.

Schneider says CT scans revealed that in addition to a fractured skull, he had life-threatening bruises, so he underwent emergency brain surgery.

“And so if I wasn’t in the emergency room when this happened, there’s a good chance we were telling a different story,” he said.

“He’s incredibly lucky. In medicine we have a saying called ‘time is a brain’ and that basically means it’s one of those injuries that you have to approach and get there as quickly as possible, because every minute passing can cause increased brain damage, ”said Dr. Darien Sutton, emergency physician, ABC News medical contributor.

Schneider says doctors expect a full recovery. He attributes his good prognosis not only to the care he received and his active lifestyle, but also to this Apple Watch.

“Those who have an Apple Watch maybe can set up their emergency contacts, which I don’t know sparked the idea in me sometime before this incident happened to make sure I had this setup, but I want to encourage people to do that, ”he said.

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