By Zack Harold
Charleston Daily Mail
GAULEY BRIDGE, W. Va. — Jesse Ingram quite literally received the shock of his life on Christmas Eve.
The shock came from a LifeVest, a defibrillator worn outside the body that monitors patients’ heart rhythms and administers life-saving shocks when wearers need one.
Ingram, 45, of Gauley Bridge, had been wearing his LifeVest for about a month at this point. He was fitted with the device after his cardiologist, Dr. Scott Duffy, diagnosed him with cardiomyopathy.
Ingram’s heart muscle was weak, putting him at risk of cardiac arrest. Duffy said Ingram needed an implanted pacemaker to shock his heart back into rhythm, but insurance companies require patients to wait three months to make sure their heart muscles don’t get better.
Duffy decided to have Ingram fitted for a LifeVest to keep him safe during that waiting period.
LifeVests, which first appeared on the market in 2002, constantly monitor patients’ heart rate and rhythm through small censors. Those censors are hooked to a small battery-powered box that can be worn over the shoulder like a purse or on a user’s belt.
The vest also holds three paddles, two in the back and one on the side. If patients need to be shocked, the paddles squirt gel onto the patients’ skin before zapping them.
Patients wear the vest 24 hours a day, except for when they’re in the shower. Every night, the device transmits the collected data to a base station via BlueTooth technology. The base station then sends the information to LifeVest’s secure website, where doctors can view their patients’ results.
The LifeVest gives off an ear-piercing alarm if it detects a high heart rate or an irregular rhythm. Patients will be shocked unless they push two buttons on the device to end the alarm. It’s a consciousness test: if users are still able to push those buttons, they don’t need to be shocked yet.
If the user doesn’t respond, the box tells all bystanders to step away and then shocks the patient. The LifeVest can administer four more shocks if the first jolt doesn’t return a patient’s heart rhythm to normal.
Ingram received his shock as he and his wife, Patti, were heading home from a quick trip to Go-Mart. Patti was driving.
“He was talking and laughing and all of a sudden he got quiet. I looked over and he was slumped down,” she said. “I thought he was playing with me.”
Patti tried to shake her husband awake, but to no avail. Jesse’s LifeVest started to alarm, advising him to push the buttons on the front and back of the device. When he didn’t respond, the device’s paddles shot blue gel onto his skin and shocked him.
“He jerked and sat straight up and said, ‘I believe I just got shocked,’ ” Patti said.
Jesse doesn’t remember much of this. He said he regained consciousness near the end of the shock.
“I felt a little bit of tingling,” he said.
Patti stopped their truck at her aunt’s house and phoned 911. Dispatchers told the couple to continue home and an ambulance met them there.
By the time the couple arrived at Charleston Area Medical Center, LifeVest already had transmitted all the information about Jesse’s heart attack to the emergency room. The data showed what his heart rate was before the event, while the attack was happening and after the shock.
Duffy said Ingram’s LifeVest experience worked exactly the way it was supposed to.
“This was a life-saving event for him. His wife now has years with him because of this,” he said.
Copyright 2012 Charleston Newspapers