A 63-year-old woman from Detroit says a selfie saved her life.
Juanita Branch, 63, said she had decided to update her Facebook page with some selfies on the morning of Aug. 13.
But when she looked back over the series of images, she told Fox, each image seemed to get progressively worse.
Checking the bathroom mirror, she saw her face was drooping and realized she was having a stroke.
Branch said that she was also losing her balance, and called an ambulance.
Not only did the images alert Branch to the fact that she was having a stroke, allowing her to call an ambulance in good time, they also provided vital information to medics trying to decide how to treat her.
Branch was losing her speech by the time the ambulance arrived. When doctors at the hospital asked what she was doing when the had the stroke, she was able to tell them about the selfies.
The doctors then realized that the images could provide vital information about the timing of the attack.
Checking the timestamp of Branch’s selfies, they realized that it had started within an all-important 3-hour window that meant she could safely take a clot-busting drug that would help her recovery.
Thyroid Cancer Spotted on TV Show
Branch, who had suffered a stroke in June 2016, is working on physical therapy and preparing to head home.
“I’m going to stop making fun of people who take selfies,” she told Fox “Because that selfie literally did save my life.”
It isn’t the first time that social media and digital images have helped identify potentially life-threatening conditions.
Earlier this year, New York Doctor Erich P Voigt spotted a suspicious lump on the throat of a guest on TV show “Beachfront Bargain Hunt.”
Concerned that it could be a cancerous growth, he posted a video on social media, appealing for help tracking down the woman, later identified as Nicole McGuinness.
The message eventually reached her, she went for a biopsy, and discovered she had thyroid cancer.
Voigt explained, “I was watching an HGTV show about a couple getting a beach front property. I noted a lump on the neck of the woman buying the home. I Felt obliged to let her know what I saw. I posted a video of the woman on Facebook and said this woman needs a sonogram and biopsy of a neck mass.”
“She was unaware that she had a mass. Her doctors had never noticed it. She went for the sonogram and biopsy I recommended. She just let me know.. the biopsy revealed thyroid cancer.”
McGuinness confirmed her diagnosis the following day to ABC news.
