Featured Image Credit: WPVI
Topics: Apple, Health, Technology, US News, Cats
Poppy Bilderbeck
A student has spoken out after her Apple Watch helped save her from carbon monoxide poisoning.
Natalia Nasatka, a student at Delaware University, was with her cat in her apartment in Smyrna - a town in Kent and New Castle counties in the state of Delaware - on 29 December when she began to feel 'extremely exhausted'.
The student's vision then became 'blurry' so she quickly grabbed her Apple Watch and hit the SOS button, later telling ABC6 Philadelphia she was 'too weak to try to find [her] phone'.
Little did the student realise what would've happened had she not had the Apple Watch to hand.
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As a result of pressing the SOS button, 911 were contacted and firefighters rushed to Nasatka's apartment where they found her lying unconscious in her bed.
She remembers hearing them shouting, announcing they'd arrived, before they 'yanked [her] out of bed,' she tells CBS News.
The student continues: "I just started crying and saying 'I want to live. I want to live'."
Nasatka later discovered she'd passed out as a result of a carbon monoxide leak, the fire department monitor reading there were '80 parts per million' in the apartment - an 'extremely high' recording.
And unconsciousness is just one of the scary symptoms of carbon monoxide poisoning, as others listed by Safewise include: "Headache, nausea, vomiting, dizziness, shortness of breath and fatigue."
Carbon monoxide can turn deadly if it's not caught quick enough because 'it binds with your red blood cells and starves your body of oxygen after passing into your lungs' and it's hard to detect as a result of being odorless, tasteless and colorless.
Thankfully, Nasatka received treatment for her carbon monoxide poisoning in hospital and was back home by New Year's Day, reunited with her cat.
The student believes the gas must've come from a faulty heater and admits she didn't have a carbon monoxide alarm fitted in her apartment.
"Burning fuels, including gas, wood, propane or charcoal, make carbon monoxide.
"Appliances and engines that aren't well vented can cause the gas to build up to dangerous levels. A tightly enclosed space makes the buildup worse," the Mayo Clinic explains.
Nasatka tells ABC6 News she's been feeling 'waves of emotions' since she's got back home, particularly 'knowing how close [she] could have been to dying'.
She resolves: "Of course, my first kiss on New Year's was my cat. Picked her up, I've been saying this since I got home that, whatever our purpose here is on earth is not done yet."
If you ever needed another reason to check your carbon monoxide detector, then take this story as a big old nudge.
The CDC recommends changing your batteries every six months.