Brandon Schneider, a man from Long Island, United States, who works as a Peloton Sales Specialist and a Level I certified running coach, visited the hospital ER last month on July 12 “after days of increasingly excruciating abdominal pain and misdiagnoses of a kidney stone.” During his visit, Schenider was asked to use the restroom in the hospital where he lost consciousness after a few minutes and fell to the ground. Luckily, he was wearing his Apple Watch, whose fall detection feature detected an impact and sent a haptic message that Schenider did not respond to within 45 seconds. Subsequently, the Watch alerted his father who had accompanied him on this visit. “While I was in the bathroom I went unconscious and fell to the ground where I apparently slammed my head, fracturing my skull and suffering an emergent Brain Bleed,” he wrote in an Instagram post. “I was only found unconscious so soon after the fall because my Apple Watch detected a hard fall and sent an emergency notification to my emergency contacts after I failed to respond to the prompt on my watch.” He further added, “I remember washing my hands and thinking for myself. Something is going to happen. I don’t remember falling to the ground, hitting my head, or anything from the events that followed.” His CT scans revealed that Schneider had a skull fracture and multiple hematomas that were growing in size and required emergency brain surgery. He underwent the surgery on July 13. He has no recollection or any memory in the hospital for about 5.5 days. “It’s certainly bizarre that I have no memory of this time, but I’ve also heard how sometimes the brain does this to protect you,” he told in a recent interview with PEOPLE. “Sometimes the memory comes back at a later time and sometimes it just shields it from you, so I take comfort in knowing that I am on the other side of it and don’t have to know what actually happened because it was so painful and scary.” While Schneider is on his road to recovery, he has urged everyone to use their watches well by setting up emergency contacts on their Apple Watch or other smartwatches for potentially life-saving benefits. “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,” he added. “Being physically fit can help people in their everyday lives when going about your daily routine, but it can also save your life or make your fight or comeback that much easier. Especially if you wind up in a situation where you need to fight to survive.” Apple had first introduced the fall detection feature in Apple Watch Series 4 in 2018. This feature detects a hard fall and requires the user to respond within 45 seconds. If the user does not respond within 45 seconds, the Watch helps them to connect to emergency services and send a message to their emergency contacts.
