Dad claims Apple watch ‘saved his life’ after it detected heart condition

A dad-of-three had heart surgery after an Apple watch detected a condition he never knew he had.

As a technology journalist, Paul Hutton, 48, decided to buy the watch to try out the new gadget.

But when it kept warning him of a resting heart rate below 40 beats a minute, he took himself to the doctor.

A healthy adult should have a resting heart rate of around 60-100 beats a minute.

Doctors diagnosed him with ventricular bigeminy – meaning that every other heart beat was significantly weaker and was not being picked up by the heart monitor.

The irregular beats in the heart mean it is unable to pump blood out effectively, putting him at a higher risk of stroke.

Paul, from Essex, said: ‘Because I write about technology I felt I should use the latest technology.

‘I knew the watch could check your pulse but it had a software update and one day I was watching TV on the sofa and it said your pulse has fallen below 40 beats per minute – it shouldn’t have been that.’

Paul added: ‘I wouldn’t have noticed it myself for a while, one day I would have felt light-headed and gone to the doctors and found my heart was working at 20 per cent capacity.

‘The second beat was so weak the watch didn’t pick it up. The heart on the main beat was working harder, my heart was slowly deteriorating because it was being worked harder.’

Paul and ended up undergoing a cardiac ablation operation to fix the problem.

He said: ‘The Apple Watch could have saved my life. It saved my retirement, I didn’t want to be a mess that couldn’t get up the stairs in my 60s.

‘It picked up something that otherwise would have gone unnoticed.’

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