Defective Defibrillator Leads Attorneys
Implanted defibrillators are supposed to give an electric shock in the even that a patient's heart stops beating. They might be a medical miracle comparable to the pacemaker, which since 1958 has been helping those with irregular heartbeats. The defibrillator is another step removed, since it seeks to prevent a heartbeat from becoming irregular or correcting the irregular heartbeat with electric shocks administered to the heart. Recently, these devices have been plagued with a number of deadly defects leading to recalls and restriction of sales.
Most recently, Medtronic Inc. announced October 15, 2007 that it was suspending sales of its Sprint Fidelis lead wires (model numbers 6930, 6931, 6948, and 6949), which have proven to break with unexpected frequency.
This suspension joins the 2005 recall of Guidant Defibrillators as an acknowledgement of a potentially fatal flaw in these otherwise life-saving machines.
According to Medtronic's statistics, the wires break approximately 2.3% of the time (well above the earlier reports of a failure rate less than 1%), and since more than 268,000 people have defibrillators equipped with the faulty wires, that means that over 5000 people can expect to suffer the consequences of the broken wires, which includes:
- The sounding of an alarm to indicate the break
- The delivery of a powerful, unnecessary shock, which has the equivalent trauma of a horse kick to the chest
- The failure of the defibrillator to deliver a life-saving shock when necessary
The last case is the most dangerous, since your leads may be broken already, completely unbeknownst to you.
Medtronic is not calling its action a recall, and, it says, the risks are not high enough for people to have the wires replaced unless they have reason to believe the leads are broken. But five people are already dead from broken leads, and the failure to issue a recall seems a profit-motivated move on the part of Medtronic.
The announcement also seems an attempt by Medtronic to defend itself against some lawsuits without having to admit that its product is potentially lethal.
Don't let Medtronic gamble with your life. If you know you have a defibrillator equipped with Sprint Fidelis lead wires in affected model numbers, or if you fear you do, contact PersonalInjury.com today to get in touch with a local lawyer who can help you find the information you need to successfully pursue your case while it's still a matter of life rather than death.
Contact our Personal Injury Lawyers and Attorneys today to find an experienced Defective Defibrillator lawyer near you.
