was it a faulty defibrillator my husband died three days later?

Question

hi my husband had a heart beat that caused his heart to fail,he was put on a ventalator,and then a week later released 6 months later same thing happened,the only reason he made it the two times was he was at work and the fire department was across the street,anyway this time the doctor convinced him to have an internal defribb put in his chest that would shock him should,his heart fail again,i brought him home on saturday and we spent a happy good day on sunday that night he said he felt strange and heard voices in his head but that it was calming,i figured he was just tierd because of the surgery,the next morning i woke up went to go get his medicine and he had died while i was gone,i don't understand they said he would be fine,did this device fail him,could he had a heart attack because it went off when not needed,does anyone have a web site for the failure of these things
thanks

Answer 1

I am very sorry to hear about your loss. You have my sympathies.

To guess at what happened in this context would be simply guessing. I agree that it was a good idea to insert an internal defibrillator to address your husband's very dangerous condition. Indeed your husband had "cheated" death on two prior occasions.

The fact that your husband died so rapidly does suggest that there was some catastrophic event...some of these types of events do not even have anything to do with the heart - like an aneurysm or a dissection of the aorta. There is a possibility that he died of something non-cardiac. Was there an autopsy done?

When the device goes off, I have never heard of one prompting a heart attack or an arrhythmia even if it went off erroneously, which by the way, I have never heard of that either.

There is a possibility that one of the leads that connect to the heart became displaced and although the device sent a shock, if it was not connected then no shock got the the heart muscle where it was needed. The device can be 'interrogated' to determine if there was any cardiac event and if the device malfunctioned. I think that your cardiologist and the manufacturer would WANT to know whether the device was implicated, so the problem does not happen again.

Good luck and god bless.

Due respect to pacer whiz, but your question implies that a pacemaker was just implanted. If that were the case, most certainly a known defective unit would not have been used - short of some total meltdown in safety procedures. Therefore checking the serial number is not going to be useful.

Answer 2

I am so sorry to hear of your loss. Fortunately, there is an easy solution. You need to know the serial number of his device, and that can be found on either his wallet card or by calling the manufacturer's 1-800 number. Next, go to their website (either www.medtronic.com, or www.guidant.com depending on what kind he had). Enter his serial number into their lookup page and it will tell you if that device was affected.

Let me know if you have any questions.

Answer 3

Sorry for your loss, Dorothy.

Sometimes things stop working. They can be mechanical things like defibrillators or engines, or organic machines like hearts or lungs.

It's hard to lose someone you love. Time will make things easier for you.

Answer 4

sorry for your loss -- i believe in destiny so he had learned what he needed to and it was his time to go,,, at least you had the great evening

Answer 5

http://www.resource4guidantrecall.com/topics/death.html
http://www.lawsuitsearch.com/medical-devices/defective-defribillators.aspx