Smartwatch saved my life

IWayne Crawford

T reads like the plot of a Marx Bros vaudeville movie — but the story of being saved by my smartwatch is nonetheless true. A story of how an Apple Watch came to my rescue, much in the manner of the comic book detective Dick Tracy.

It started as an ordinary Saturday morning, as I prepared to shower but slipped off a stool, fell on the tiled floor of my bathroom, and broke the neck of the femur bone just below my right hip.

My son Adam says it happened at 8.31am. At least that’s when he got the SOS message from my watch. As I lay screaming in excruciating pain, alone in my retirement village apartment, my Apple Watch went into immediate action.

The watch had been bought for me by Adam and my daughter Nadine after the death this year of my beloved wife Margaret. They had been concerned I would now be living alone and — unsteady on my feet, having lived with multiple sclerosis for 50 years — might be subject to falls. Presciently, they bought the watch because of a feature that sends an automatic SOS in the event the wearer falls. For those not versed in modern technology, the Apple Watch is a sophisticated 21st century version of the two-way wristwatch radio famously worn by Dick Tracy, the comic-strip detective of early last century.

It can be used just like a phone to make and take calls, send and receive text messages and emails. It has all sorts of fancy features like measuring my heart rate and giving reminders. And it tells the time, just like a wristwatch.

The Apple Watch is so sensitive it will detect a fall and instantly send SOS messages with my name and location to the triple-0 emergency service plus other emergency contacts listed in my Apple iPhone, which operates in conjunction with the watch. So there I was, sprawled on the bathroom floor, howling in agony, and talking into my wrist like Dick Tracy, answering phone calls from the triple-0 service, Adam, Nadine, and a string of friends on my SOS list, and who wanted to know what the emergency was.

Quick off the mark were friends from Taroona, who headed at speed on Sandy Bay Road toward my home, when a police car with flashing lights and blaring siren pulled them over. “We’re on a mercy mission to rescue a friend who’s had a fall and needs help,” my friends pleaded, faced with the prospect of a speeding ticket.

“Oh yes,” replied the cops, “so are we. The emergency call from triple-zero came over the police radio. Lead the way.”

So off shot my friends with the cops in pursuit. When they got to my apartment they found Adam had arrived. He explained that the front door was locked and that Dad had told him a key left in a safe hiding place outside, years ago, had been hidden a bit too efficiently and couldn’t be found. The glass front door would have to be smashed.

Someone asked one of the policemen: “Don’t they teach you to pick locks at police school.” “No,” said the cop, “only how to use a battering ram.”

The police were preparing to put a fire extinguisher through the glass door when Adam (6ft 4in in his socks) spotted the key hidden high on a ledge above a window.

So they unlocked the door to reveal Wayne writhing on the bathroom floor.

Some time later the ambos arrived. One minute I was screaming like a banshee, the next I was off with the fairies thanks to the paramedics’ swift, cool efficiency administering something called a Green Whistle (a little plastic inhaler dispensing a powerful pharmaceutical called Penthrox which would fetch a fortune at dance parties). Eventually, the medics heaved me onto a gurney and carted me off to Calvary Emergency Department, siren blaring as testimony to the urgency of my crisis.

By then, 11 people — including ambos, cops, Adam and six friends — had crowded in the apartment, having responded to the SOS sent out by the Apple Watch.

I hadn’t needed to lift a finger to call for help. At Calvary, fortunately, an orthopaedic surgeon was on standby to sacrifice his Saturday night to patch up my fractured hip with some screws and a titanium rod. That was the easy bit. After a fortnight in a hospital bed I was transferred to the rehab unit at St John’s hospital campus in South Hobart for six weeks of physiotherapy to get me back to a condition where I could go home and resume living independently.

The rehab unit is a Gym of Miracles, as the scribbled sign says on the notice board — and as many of similar, or greater, advanced age to me (mid-70s) can testify. There was a steady stream of patients of advanced years going through similar challenging episodes of rehabilitation with the amazing team of committed and skilled doctors, nurses, physiotherapists, occupational therapists, speech pathologists, dietitians and support staff, patiently working to get accident prone geriatrics like me back on our feet.

With our population ageing, and injuries, especially from falls, an increasing concern, Hobart is fortunate to have this understated but extraordinary facility at St John’s.

But it must be a very costly exercise. My two-month hospital stay cost my health fund more than $50,000 in hospital and doctor fees. My out-of-pockets: a mere $250 “copayment”. My good fortune in wearing a piece of advanced technology that summoned immediate help was highlighted when I heard some other tales of woe from fellow physio patients. One, in his 80s, told me he had fallen in his kitchen one morning and, unable to get to a phone to call for help, lay in pain and distress on the cold, hard floor for more than 24 hours until found by a visitor. I was very fortunate to be wearing an Apple Watch and grateful I kept up my Bupa health insurance premium payments. Wayne Crawford is a former associate editor and Walkley Award-winning journalist.