My Story (Kinda long)

I had a pacemaker/defib inserted back in 2003. This past December, after receiving the famous Medtronic Recall notice, I visited with my doctor concerning the recall. The office read my pacemaker and there is a particular code that it reads (not sure what it was) and they are looking for a reading greater than 1,200 to indicate that there is a fracture in the lead. Mine was sitting at a little over 400 so I was ok.

On New Years day, just walking across the living room, my defibrillator started shocking me. It proceeded to do this for 6 times. By the time the 6th shock occurred, I was laying out in my hall way by the front door. I didn't know that it was set to time out after 6 shocks.

We called 911 and were carried to the hospital. After being there for a couple hours, believe it or not, the emergency room doctor was going to just send me home as they couldn't find anything. I questioned why they weren't going to read my pacemaker prior to sending me home and he said that he didn't think about it.

After Medtronic came to the hospital to read it, they confirmed that there were no heart issues but that it WAS due to the recall.

I was scheduled to have them go in to replace the bad lead on the 4th but one of the pieces of equipment in the hospital was not working so they had to put it off until the 7th.

During the procedure, they attempted to pull the bad lead out but it had alread fused itself to another lead so they just capped that bad lead off. They tried to get another lead down to the heart in the same place and were unsuccessful. They even cut a hole in my neck close to the juggler vein to attempt to go through a vein there.

So they then pulled the hardware out and placed it on the right side of my heart, created a tunnel underneath my collar bone to run the two good leads through to the new hardware and inserted the new lead from there down to the heart.

After another 2 days in the hospital, I was finally able to come home. A week later, I'm back at work and doing wonderfully.

I'm now receiving all those WONDERFULLY EXPENSIVE medical bills and am anxious to see how much of this Medtronic will be paying for.

Anyone else here have an incident from your bad lead or am I the 1st one here?

Take care and may God bless you all.


7 Comments

Well.................

by bambi - 2008-02-27 03:02:01

my very simplistic response would be that Medtronic needs to pay the bills, lock, stock, and barrel! What an awful experience for you! I'm not a lawyer however, so I can't offer any advice. I'm hoping someone on here will have some expertise in this area. There's always a risk we take when we sign on the dotted line for medical procedures, but to have to go through all this because of a manufacturer's recall is horrible! I am faced with thousands and thousands of medical bills, because my EP ignored my complaints of obvious SVC obstruction. I had insurance when I was complaining that something was wrong, but after I lost my insurance and was deemed "uninsurable" my Dr. did decide that what I did indeed have, needed surgery! To his credit, he did not charge me, but I am faced with $30,000 in hospital bills! Anyway, I would contact a lawyer, even if for just a consultation! Good luck!

Wow...

by Nutbeem - 2008-02-27 04:02:59

...what a story!

Did your EP say that it was the lead fracture that caused your shocks? That's awful....

Glad you're doing good - it sounds like your surgery ended up being much more invasive than most of us experience, and it's great to hear you're doing well.

WOW

by litmachog - 2008-02-27 06:02:05

Yes, they specifically stated that. The cause is simply stated, the lead has 3 wires in it, two for the pacer and one for the defib. There is insulation in the lead that buffers the wires. The recall is due to the fact that the insulation is fracturing. They stated that my insulation had fractured and thus the wires started touching and causing a static noise. The defib picked up that noise as something that it didn't recognize and started the shocks.

I currently have someone inside of the company that right now is working as an advocate for me to get ALL my bills paid. I am not going to be talking to a lawyer yet unless Medtronic starts dragging my feet. I truly believe that I should not have to pay a single penny, from the ambulance bills, to the ER, all the way to the pain medicines taken after I got home. At least, that is my intent.

Same Issue/Medtronic lead recall

by bunnykin - 2008-02-28 05:02:30

May I send you private message? I have an ICD lead that's on recall too.

Bunnykin

broken wire

by huskersnb2 - 2008-03-02 12:03:40

hey i have a broken wire 2 i got shocked 11 times by a faulty wire mine is on recall also i agree we should not have to pay any of the bills from the recalled item my bill is way up there in the dollar figure two hospital visits went off 8 times ambulance ride alot of bills sent home next day went off 3 more times hospital checked in again more test ambulance ride 60 miles to heart hospital admitted more test pm defib shut off broken wire 2 more unplanned visits to doctor and more and now i have to decide if i should fix it or have it removed more bills
So i don't know what to tell you but i got me a lawyer i had to miss work so im guessing the total bill is over $50/000 just guessing thank god i have insurance they paid alot but i still got to pay the rest and it scarred the livin poop out of me and more it really scared my wife half to death and all the offer is to pay $800.00 to the person that has a broken wire so you tell me what I know what im doing becuase it was not right you can send me a private message and let me know what youre doing and i can tell yo what my lawyer told me ok huskersnb2

Medtronic Recall

by KathyP - 2008-03-14 02:03:48

Hi, We live in Canada and my son has a Medtronic ICD.
Can you tell me how you found out about the recall?
Did you receive a letter from Medtronic? Or did the hospital/doctor contact you.
After reading the above stories - I am concerned we might miss a recall.
Thanks for your help.
KathyP

Medtronic Recall

by KathyP - 2008-03-14 02:03:49

Hi, We live in Canada and my son has a Medtronic ICD.
Can you tell me how you found out about the recall?
Did you receive a letter from Medtronic? Or did the hospital/doctor contact you.
After reading the above stories - I am concerned we might miss a recall.
Thanks for your help.
KathyP

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