Keeping a close watch
Emergency texts set off chain reaction to save mum’s life
YOU can be hard pressed to know your neighbours’ names these days but that certainly isn’t the case for the Donald family.
The family of five knows their neighbours so well they know the pin code to access their home and let themselves into the house – and there’s even an emergency SOS WhatsApp group.
But that’s because mum Kate, 40, suffers from epilepsy so everyone from her oldest child Jack, 7, to the lady next door knows what to do if she goes down with a seizure.
In fact, Jack was the youngest child in NSW to call an ambulance when he was just three years old.
“We’ve been trying to teach Lucas, who’s three, but it’s not going as well, maybe he’s not as smart,” Mrs Donald laughs.
Her condition is not really a laughing matter.
Just two months ago Mrs Donald’s husband, Ben, noticed she wasn’t herself and suspected a seizure might be coming on.
Because her seizures can be triggered by sleep deprivation, Mr Donald ensured Lucas and eight-month-old Matilda were out of the house with their nanny.
Mrs Donald suffered a seizure at home alone but, thanks to the new Apple Watch she got as her “push present” for delivering baby Tilly, who was eight weeks premature, she wasn’t left unconscious on her own for too long.
Mr Donald automatically got a message as his wife’s emergency contact saying she’d had a fall.
If the Apple Watch Series 4 detects a hard fall while you’re wearing your watch, it taps you on the wrist, sounds an alarm and displays an alert.
If your watch detects you have been immobile for about a minute, it will make the call to triple-0 automatically.
After the call ends, your watch sends a message to your emergency contacts with your location and lets them know that your watch detected a hard fall and dialled emergency services.
Mrs Donald says in the past she had been unconscious for hours before someone found her or she came to.
Her second eldest, Lucas, is trying to learn how to call triple-0 from the Apple Watch now Jack is the one trained to help his mum.