Man credits Apple Watch with saving his life after serious fall

NEW YORK -- A New York man is crediting his Apple Watch with saving his life after he suffered a serious fall.

For 25-year-old Brandon Schneider, being active is a way of life. Besides riding and hiking, the Peloton sales specialist runs five to six times a week and has four marathons under his belt.

Like countless other fitness buffs, Schneider tracks his health on his Apple Watch. Recently, he said the watch did more than tell the time.

"I would certainly say that the Apple Watch helped save my life," Schneider said.

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

"This seemed different than anything I really have experienced in the past, and I was in excruciating pain," he said.

Accompanied by his dad, Schneider went to the hospital emergency room on July 12. During the visit, he went to the restroom. He says he was only in there for a couple of minutes when he lost consciousness.

"I remember washing my hands and thinking to myself, is something going to happen," Schneider said. "I don't remember falling to the ground, or hitting my head, or anything of the events that followed."

Fortunately, for the fitness enthusiast, Schneider said within seconds, his Apple Watch alerted his father nearby.

"My Apple Watch detected a hard fall, and I did not respond to the like haptic message that requires a response and 45 seconds," Schneider said.

Because of the alert, his father immediately got the hospital staff to his side.

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

Schneider said CT scans revealed that along with a fractured skull, he had life-threatening hematomas, so he underwent emergency brain surgery.

"And so if I weren't in the ER at the time that this occurred, chances are, we might be telling a different story," he said.

"He's incredibly lucky. In medicine, we have a saying called 'time is brain' and it essentially just means that it's one of those injuries that you have to approach it and get to it as quickly as possible, because each and every minute that passes by can provide increased damage to the brain," said Dr. Darien Sutton, emergency medicine physician, ABC News medical contributor.

Schneider says doctors expect a full recovery. He credits his good prognosis not just to the care he received, and his active lifestyle, but also that Apple watch.

"Those who have an Apple Watch, may be able to set up their emergency contacts, which I don't know what sparked the idea in me sometime before this incident occurred to make sure I had that setup, but I want to encourage people to do that," he said.