By Christopher Snowbeck
The St. Paul Pioneer Press
ST. PAUL, Minn. — Defibrillators usually save people by delivering jolts, not absorbing them.
But doctors in Florida are reporting the case of a 61-year-old gunshot victim who was spared more serious injury when the bullet lodged in his implantable cardiac defibrillator.
The heart device, known as an ICD for short, was manufactured by Fridley-based Medtronic. Doctors documenting the case drew a simple moral from the story:
“Although rare, this case describes an as-yet-unreported new benefit of ICD implantation: Protection from gunfire,” they wrote in the October edition of the journal Heart Rhythm.
“This is a rare case, but it’s good to know our device helped ... in a nontraditional way,” said Medtronic spokeswoman Catherine Peloquin.
Medtronic is one of three Twin Cities makers of the $30,000 stopwatch-sized devices, along with Little Canada-based St. Jude Medical and Boston Scientific, which manufactures implantable defibrillators in Arden Hills.
Implantable defibrillators are implanted in the chest and connected to the heart with thin lead wires. When a patient suffers a dangerous heart rhythm that can lead to sudden cardiac arrest, defibrillators detect the problem and deliver a life-saving shock.
Defibrillators are implanted under the skin, generally on the left side of the chest near the collarbone, Peloquin said. That placement turned out to be fortuitous for the unidentified patient, who arrived at the emergency room “alert with stable vital signs and virtually no symptoms” despite the gunshot wound, according to the medical journal’s report.
A diagnostic imaging test showed metal fragments in the soft tissues of the man’s chest but no damage to the lungs and circulatory system. The defibrillator, doctors pointed out, was “nonfunctional.”
“The patient underwent device removal the following day,” they wrote. “A copper bullet fragment was found lodged within the body of the (ICD) generator. Small pieces of shrapnel were removed. ... The patient was discharged home the following day.”
Dr. Westby Fisher, a specialist in suburban Chicago who treats patients with heart rhythm problems, highlighted the journal item in a blog posting Monday.
“Another way defibrillators prevent sudden death,” Fisher wrote. “It seems they can stop bullets.”
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