Xiao’s wife had always warned him against eating foods high in cholesterol. “Your family has a history of heart problems! You can’t eat such unhealthy food,” she would always tell him in their native Mandarin Chinese. At home, in the small town of Qufu, the birthplace of Confucius, she could cook healthy food for him. Xiao’s bad habits always came back, however, when he embarked on business trips across China. On his first trip to America, though, Xiao learned the importance of his wife’s advice the hard way.

Xiao landed at Sky Harbor International Airport in Phoenix early on Monday morning. His rental car from Hertz was waiting for him as he stepped off the plane. Hertz had received an automatic alert about the plane’s arrival based on his reservation and itinerary. He began making his way to Tucson, where he was scheduled to meet with the executives of the American construction company, Buildmasters. He represented the China Construction Company (CCC), and the discussion revolved around the acquisition of Buildmasters by CCC. Video conferences had taken care of most of the negotiation, but the executives in Arizona needed that last face-to-face contact before sealing the deal.

Driving in the midst of rush hour, Xiao could feel his anxiety growing with each passing minute. He had no clue how his American counterparts would react to his broken, heavily accented English. Through his video cell phone, he could speak in Chinese with immediate translation, so understanding between the parties had been simple. Now, he worried that communication would be difficult in addition to the pressure of the different customs and culture in the boardroom.

In a split second, the events of the day changed dramatically. Without warning, Xiao experienced a massive heart attack. Slight pain in the heart turned unbearable, and Xiao fell unconscious. Immediately, his Honda Accord noticed that Xiao had released his grip of the steering wheel and his foot had stopped applying pressure on the brake or the accelerator. The car instantly put his hazards on and slowly applied the brakes while sending information of Xiao’s unresponsive status directly to his phone and Palm Pilot. Also, an alert was automatically sent to the local Arizona emergency authorities including the police, fire, and ambulance services. Within 10 seconds, alerts were sent to all radio stations and electronic devices in cars on the highway about the distressed status of the Honda Accord.

Cars began braking and making way for the Honda Accord to pull off the road. A quarter mile back, a large group of elementary school children were happily singing songs at the top of their voices. Luckily, the emergency alert system in the bus recognized the noise level within the bus and turned up the volume of the radio. The bus driver heard the emergency alert and immediately prepared to slow down. As she rounded the curve, she was narrowly able to avoid a serious accident with the braking cars ahead.

While the roads were being automatically and safely cleared for the distressed Honda to pull over to the side of the road, Jane, an emergency operator, went into action. Xiao’s watch, which also served as a medical alert system, had sent all his personal and medical information to Jane, and she pulled up his medical records. In an instant, all his records were translated from Chinese to English for Jane’s viewing. All his information had already been prioritized by the relevance to the status of the patient as reported by Xiao’s watch. Jane looked at the computer, and saw Xiao’s family history of high cholesterol. She suspected either a heart attack or a stroke, and she instructed the computer to take action accordingly. 

As the ambulance neared Xiao’s car, the two EMTs, Jeff and Eric, looked anxious. Jeff navigated through traffic as Eric’s cell phone uploaded the data from the emergency department. He read the situation and prepared the back of the ambulance for Xiao. Eric glanced at Xiao’s medical records as he prepared a response for clogged arteries. The computer noted that Xiao was allergic to aspirin and alerted Eric’s cell phone. Eric received the information, looked at the aspirin he had prepared as a first response to the heart attack, and realized he could have cost someone their life.

While the ambulance reached Xiao’s car, the computer had automatically contacted the local surgeons in several fields to be prepared for emergency. Also, the system instantly sent messages to Xiao’s wife, alerting her of her husband’s status. Within just two minutes of the onset of Xiao’s heart attack, an ambulance was on its way, the Honda Accord had safely found its way to the side of the freeway, the radio system had avoided a major calamity on the roads, his watch had monitored his condition and updated medical personnel after accessing his medical records, and his wife had been alerted regarding his status. 

Jeff and Eric put Xiao onto the stretcher and confirmed he was suffering from an acute heart attack. As Jeff put the sirens on and began driving to the Arizona General Hospital, Eric used his cell phone to quickly alert the emergency computer system of Xiao’s status. The computer contacted the necessary heart surgeons. In an immediate video conference, the surgeons realized that Xiao may not survive the trip to the hospital. He needed immediate surgery.  Eric had wasted no time in administering care to Xiao in the ambulance. He had given Xiao a different anti-platelet agent because of Xiao’s allergy to aspirin. Then, through an IV, Eric had sent heparin and beta-blocking agents to try to prevent the blood from clotting in his arteries. Now there was a whole new challenge.

Eric received the message from the hospital that he would need to attempt a standard coronary angioplasty to try to open the blocked artery. As the ambulance sped toward the hospital, Eric began the complex procedure, drawing comfort in the fact that the video interactivity in the ambulance made him feel as if all the doctors were right there with him. Following the doctors’ orders he made the incision in the groin and began weaving the camera into the blood vessel. Soon the doctors recognized that Xiao had very narrow blood vessels and that the normal procedure was impossible. Emergency open-heart surgery was necessary. It was the first time that this complex procedure was being performed by “remote control” with Eric as the hand of the surgeons. Slowly and deliberately, Eric followed the precise instructions of the anxiously watching doctors and conducted the surgery. As Jeff drove into the emergency entrance, the waiting doctors and nurses took over from an exhausted Eric and completed the surgery successfully.

After the surgery had been performed, one of the surgeons talked to Xiao’s wife to give her the update. The seamless translation allowed the two to communicate and for her questions to be answered. He briefly told her about the fifteen minutes that had changed her husband’s life forever. Every one of those minutes had been a matter of life and death for Xiao. Though Xiao was still in critical condition, it now looked like he was going to survive. Xiao’s wife thanked the doctor and then told her children of the scare as they waited together for Xiao to regain consciousness.

Xiao woke up hours later to the smiling faces of his wife and two children on the TV screen of his hospital bedroom. Through the video cell phones, he was able to talk to and see his family from the hospital bed. His wife told him how happy she was that he was alive and how close he had been to death. Xiao could not help but feel a new appreciation for his life and family. As he talked to his wife and children, suddenly he remembered his meeting with the executives from Buildmaster. He said, to no one in particular, “The executives must think our company is no longer interested!” His wife laughed, telling him that his Palm Pilot, synchronized with his car and cell phone, had sent an email to the executives, alerting them to his status. As he pulled out his Palm Pilot to reschedule the meeting, he thought to himself, “Technology really works wonders.” Xiao didn’t know the half of it.

One Life is Worth the Universe

by Arvind Nagarajan

2005

Published by Motorola, Inc.
One of top 10 college finalists in MOTOFWRD competition, a nationwide challenge asking emerging innovators to depict either through words or visuals the future of seamless mobility.