Imagine the horror of being told your life saving heart implant has a faulty battery: Two patients tell how internal defibrillator had to be replaced

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They’re meant to be lifesaving, so imagine the terror of learning that the defibrillator implanted inside your body could have a faulty battery that might stop your heart working at any time.

‘It is a bit like hoping you have the winning lottery ticket when you really need that money,’ says Andrew Wilson, a 49-year-old software engineer from Nottingham. ‘If you have a gun pointed at your chest, you know what’s going to happen, but with this you just don’t know if you have a faulty device or not.’

In March this year, Andrew was given a defibrillator, a high-tech device designed to detect instantly if the heart’s pumping mechanism has gone awry and, if it has, to deliver a bolt of electricity to shock it back into rhythm.

Andrew needed the implant after a bad attack of flu caused damage to his heart muscle. But getting the device was the beginning rather than the end of his problems.

0d3c1f91d2cac73880b44ee6d66862ba Imagine the horror of being told your life saving heart implant has a faulty battery: Two patients tell how internal defibrillator had to be replaced

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