Continued from Part 1.
As it turns out, empirical evidence suggests that the dual-mode devices may actually lead to a net loss of about 1,000 lives per years rather than to any net gain. The reasons for this are several as Fairwarning, a nonprofit engaged in publishing news on safety and health issues, points out.
Bad batteries in the devices can destroy their utility.
For reasons unclear, the dual-mode devices sometimes fail to turn on when they should, and sometimes turn off when they shouldn’t.
Electric shocks often won’t restart the stopped heart of patients suffering from grave illness or extensive injury; manual CPR is required.
Somehow I don’t find any of these reasons very surprising. Anyone who’s used technology knows that battery-operated devices can be cranky and unreliable when you most need them. Even devices with rechargeable batteries will eventually fail as the chemical reactions involved in charging, sustaining, and using the battery finally use up the necessary elements to initiate a power-up state. And even when batteries aren’t at fault, all sorts of factors can cause sudden and inexplicable problems with complex technological devices.
And I fully understand the reluctance of someone untrained on defibrillators to use even a mostly automated device. When someone’s life hangs in the balance, and you aren’t sure what you are doing or what the machine might be doing, you don’t want to be responsible for taking the crucial step that might lead to certain death.
Studies that have compared survival rates show that the use of manual defibrillators saved more lives in the hospital setting than the use of automated dual-mode defibrillators. Questions are being asked.
Predictably, those on the American Heart Association committee that made the recommendation in favor of using the dual-mode devices are either not responding to queries, or responding in vague, politically savvy language that says nothing clearly. 10,000 deaths or more might have resulted from their enthusiastic recommendation that was uninformed by any real evidence or hospital trials.
You may know someone who dies from cardiac arrest while at the hospital. If you lost a close family member, perhaps you already know what type of defibrillator the hospital employed in the incident. If you don’t know, you should probably have a product defect attorney experienced in medical device cases find out for you.
The inquiry process might meet some resistance. Your attorney might have to file court motions to compel an answer. If you need help in your effort, feel free to call on our product defect attorneys at Denena & Points. We have more than 12 years of experience helping those harmed by defective medical devices to successfully get the answers and the justice they need.