AirPods crucial to summoning medical help after serious head injury

A New Jersey designer has detailed how she used her AirPods and Siri to call for help after sustaining a head injury alone in her studio.

Susan Putman, a 60-year old floral designer, can often be found working in her garage studio, listening to music via her AirPods. Lucky for her, her love of music would be the thing that saved her after a traumatic injury.

"I was working on a four-foot horseshoe wreath, and I stepped back to look at it and I forgot its box was sitting on the floor," Putman tells People. "I must have been very conscious about not smashing the wreath because I tripped and flew maybe 8 ft. in the air and my head landed against these metal poles."

After the accident, Putman realized that she had been injured and was losing a lot of blood. But, instead of getting up and attempting to find help, she simply said, "Hey Siri, call 911."

Putman was then connected with a 911 operator who stayed on the line until police and paramedics arrived. She vaguely remembers that two police officers arrived on the scene, held a towel to her head, and called an ambulance.

"Honestly, if it had been another 15 minutes, I'm not sure I'd be here," Putman says. "There's no doubt about it — if I didn't have my AirPods in, I would've died."

After being taken to the hospital, Putman received seven staples across the side of her head. She was diagnosed with a concussion, spending a month and a half unable to look at screens of any kind.

However, she's since made a full recovery, and can often be found back in her studio, still working on floral arrangements, still listening to music on her AirPods.

It's often the Apple Watch that gets credited with saving lives, as the device comes equipped with various health-monitoring features.

In September, a 24-year-old motorcyclist was brought to a hospital, despite being knocked unconscious after a collision with a van, thanks to the fall detection feature on his Apple Watch.

In January of 2021, a cyclist was able to call for emergency help on his Apple Watch, after he was caught up in flooding along the River Wye in the U.K.

And in November, a woman was alerted that her heart rate was too low on multiple occasions. The alerts caused her to visit the hospital multiple times, and doctors would later install a pacemaker.