WHOOP, also a digital diagnostic tool.

Medical emergency averted after surf journalist uses fitness strap to monitor vital signs of suspected overdose!

WHOOP ain't just a personalised digital fitness trainer!

It’s over. The little kid is asleep and his makeshift bed in a vestibule is being painted by a light sea mist delivered by a spring onshore. 

A few hours earlier, the house had been the site of a moderately wild teenage bacchanal, although nothing out of the ordinary. 

A dozen or so of ‘em sending it, I’m later told: boys with their synthetic cannabinoid products and girls upending bottles of pink moscato, whispering gossipy stories loudly, sweating as they twirl and laugh and dance, all of ’em sucking hell out of their Mango Tango and Watermelon Wave vape pens. 

The boys posture as tough, slightly dangerous, devil-may-care characters, drinking and smoking more than their most of ‘em can handle. As the night wears, pools of spew, in hideously abstract shapes, decorate the garden. 

One kid hits the synthetics more than he should, drinks more than he can, hallucinates, panics, heart is bouncing out of his chest. 

I’m doing my midnight rounds of Bondi, searching for inspiration on these lonely walks, cataloguing various mistakes and ways of repeating ‘em over and over, when the party pours out onto the front lawn. 

Someone yells to call an ambulance. 

A kid collapses on the front lawn. 

Can you doing anything, they ask as I stop, mistaking me for someone capable. 

He says it’s his heart. 

Heart. 

I throw two fingers at the usual pulse points.

I ain’t no doctor. It feels fast. Is it 120 or 220?

Who knows. 

I claw at my WHOOP, wrap it around the kid’s little wrist and open the app. 

Heart at 140, hitting wild 170 bumps. 

Will he go into cardiac arrest? 

I ask the other kids if he’s had any pills. 

No, no, no, of course not, they chorus. 

Yeah.

I tell ’em it’s time to be real. It could mean keeping your pal alive. If it’s pills, the kid is going in an ambulance. 

They swear it’s weed and booze.

It’s a good sign.  

Doing something, and having a little knowledge, is the key in these sorta situations according to my pal who makes tourniquets for surfers. The simple act of having something to do, he says, takes away the panic, lets you take a step back, assess matters. 

I hold the kid’s head, keep a reassuring hand on his back. 

You’re good, you’re good, I tell him. 

I watch the heart-rate steady at 140 and the spikes subside. 

Gradually, it dips below 100 and sits on sixty, sixty-five as weed-induced panic turns into a deep sleep. 

An elderly neighbour says the kid can sleep in the front room of her joint. We get his parents’ number and call ‘em. They’re thirty away. 

I stay with the kid, monitoring the heart steady at fifty-nine now, until his parents arrive. 

Much thanking, shaking hands and so on. 

Forced to rip my personalised digital fitness trainer off kid’s wrist as he’s carried to car, however. 

There’s a limit to this Good Samaritan bullshit, right? 

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39 Comments
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Picard Madeoff

Kids today party in the minor leagues. Back in the teen years of a Boomer, we had a trash bag full of laughing gas, hash on a pin under a glass, a bong hooked up to a fish tank pump with 4 tubes coming of it, shrooms for days and the occasional lemmon 714- which when smoked out of the bong produced yellow smoke. BUNCH OF ROOKIES!

Astrophysicien

So Whoop startup on monthly plan is better than Apple watch with long history of software improvements, long history of sensor improvements/additions and direct integration with phone OS? And Apple + fitness 1/3 monthly cost or standard free.

Google owns FitBit. Again direct integration with Android.

Apple and Google tn € companies with extensive electronic, software, sensor skill.

Whoop? The next big thing? The next unicorn? Doubtful sorry.

That said glad you could help the kid out, well done.

Gadoot

Sure the Apple Watch is better but not everyone is ok with supporting monopolies with a history of treating their factory workers like garbage while simultaneously raking in billions in profits.

Astrophysicien

Apple is by no means a monopoly, and where and how the Whoop electronics/ manufacturing and assembly is done is unknown.

But yes App!e is quite profitable and has had instances of unfair worker treatment. Due to the media attention this engenders I would imagine this has been largely rectified but perhaps I am incorrect.

Gadoot

Maybe not a monopoly but they have definitely tried to be one. By definition they are an Oligopoly and Monopolistic Competitor which is enough for me to not support them. I see no excuse for bad treatment of workers and given the power they yield it’s surprising we have even heard of their mistreatment.

Phat-wan kerr

“what’s he taken?”
“don’t mess around, this is serious, has he taken anything?”
“ok, if you want to help your friend I am going need all the cash you have, I need to get some emergency antidote from 7-11. hurry up, no time to waste”
“keep a close eye on him, I will be back as quick as possible”
Derek runs as fast as he can until he is out of sight and then slows to a jaunty stroll, a smile spreads across his face as he sucks the fresh night air
“suckers”.

ValiantScorn

And just like that, you inadvertently expose BG readers to a spikeprotein heart condition episode. This is the future for “some” jab recipients.

Round 1

Jimmy the Saint

Finally they have identified a potential market

Astrophysicien

True, and for the unvaccinated is?

JohnsKnees

SharkGrit > JohnahGrit > PassingKidneyStoneGrit > BittenBySharkGrit > WhoopGrit

Chas Smith

What about ZuckGrit?

astro

That’ll be as popular as LodgeGrit.

JohnsKnees

I dont mind Zuckgrit cause it gives me the opportunity to Photoshop you alongside him. #KingsofFoiling

Urchin Sepsis

This is why Oz needs to legalize weed.

Firelipe Torpedo

Derek trying to pretend he doesn’t frequent teen drinking parties

surfmom

“Was just walking by and uh… yea totally by chance”

Travis Edgar

Worthy of a special Hero badge huh Negs?

Beef & Beer

Dear Dr DR,
What type of CoViD treatments is your whoop prescribing ?

HandJamTurpel

wrong app to get covid treatment advice from, you’re thinking of instagram

timsluis

Should have left it on the kid and we could all move on from this advertorial loop

Jimmy the Saint

Even a semi-comatose kid doesn’t want one of those things on his wrist!

Captain Wack

Does the whoop have a category to track stalking? Dereks peeping tom tracker hit 11 today baha

Dogsnuts

Have fun rooting the mums mate. Good on ya!

@surfads

“This kid is overdosing… quick, get help. Is there a surf journalist in the house?”

*dishevelled middle to late aged man raises his head from the recycling bin*

“Yes?”

Jimmy the Saint

“I’m not an epidemiologist but… “

NEGATRON

I’m surprised you didn’t call the Ambulance just so could give them the Whoop BeachGrit discount code.

Wayne Lunch

Searching for inspiration or casing out houses? C’mon be honest.

frank

Snoop, there it is

wincy

Peak Whoop
Trough Grit

Chazz Michael Michaels

The zenith of WhoopLit.

Derek Hynd's Missing Fins

The nadir of “surf” “journalism.”

frank

The apotheosis of saint Derek

Mapski

He left out the part about multiple hernia checks.

Captain Wack

A lesser man (me) would have just stepped over the kid walking into the house to hang out with the drunk teenage girls

Tomas' silky smooth arms

The benefits of not having a whoop.

Dim Sim

I expected this to be about you drinking a cortado, a macchiato and a ristretto in a single session.

Hot stuff

Smells like teen vomit.


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