Alert Issued on Heart Device Battery Packs

The Food and Drug Administration on Tuesday warned hospitals and rescue squads that battery-powered heart defibrillators used by rescue teams may have defective power packs that could fail without warning.

In a safety alert signed by the head of the agency’s medical devices division, the FDA said it was not known how many manufacturers may have used faulty battery packs manufactured by the General Electric Co. last year.

Until the battery packs are traced further, it said, hospital administrators should be aware that rechargeable battery packs in defibrillators “may fail suddenly and without warning. Testing will not reliably identify batteries subject to the potential failure.”

A heart defibrillator is an emergency life-saving device that delivers an electric jolt to the chest of a heart attack victim. The charge often can restore a regular heartbeat to a patient whose heart has lapsed into a useless, irregular beat.

Relies on Electric Shock

In battery-powered defibrillators, the electric jolt comes from a capacitor that is charged by the battery pack. If the batteries go dead, they cannot charge the capacitor, and the defibrillator will be unable to give the life-saving electric shock, the FDA noted.