Yahoo! - Guidant Recalls 50,000 Defibrillators

[SafetyPro2]

Guidant Recalls 50,000 Defibrillators

By ASHLEY M. HEHER, Associated Press Writer

INDIANAPOLIS - Guidant Corp. said Friday it was recalling cardiac defibrillators implanted in nearly 50,000 people worldwide because of a flaw that could cause it to malfunction.

At least two patients with the devices have died. The Indianapolis-based company said it was advising physicians about the safety of several defibrillator models, which have failed at least 45 times.

The U.S.
Food and Drug Administration advised patients to see their doctor and said it would not recommend whether individual patients with one of the recalled devices should have them removed and replaced. Guidant offered to replace some of the defibrillators, but has not said that removal or replacement of any is necessary.

Read more here

 

[CodeSurfer]

Your link is broken... I would like to read more about this. I have heard of people responding to a chest pain call and having the patient "defib themselves" or automatically with these things and scare the medics half to death. I cant imagine if they didnt tell you they had one and then they suddenly jumped like you had shocked them...

 

[Jon]

Originally posted by CodeSurfer@Jun 18 2005, 12:35 AM
Your link is broken... I would like to read more about this. I have heard of people responding to a chest pain call and having the patient "defib themselves" or automatically with these things and scare the medics half to death. I cant imagine if they didnt tell you they had one and then they suddenly jumped like you had shocked them...

I had one.... The pt. was a fire co. Life member. Her defib went off when she was in the bath... she called 911 (as her doc has instructed her to) and we showed up... it shocked her again when we were loading her onto the strecher (ALS not onscene yet). I wasn't a Medic Wannabe yet, so I didn't pay attention to the ALS side of things... tx. was the usually line, lab, trans to ED class II.

Jon

 

[Jon]

This is a bad thing though.

My questions are:

A: the folks who died.... how can they prove that if the defib worked, the pt. would have survived?

B: if yours was recalled... do they pay all the hospital bills for the surgery?

 

[SafetyPro2]

Yahoo! appears to have removed the article I originally linked to, but here's the story from ABC News.

 

[CodeSurfer]

Sounds like they are going to pay for them to have the broken ones replaced. But how can you compensate for having to go through another surgery?