Personal Injury Law

Recall on JumpStart External Defribillators

By Greg Owen

Welch Allen is recalling 14,054 AED 10 and MRL JumpStart exteral defribrillators made between Oct. 3 2002, and Jan 25, 2007. The announcement comes after 39 reported incidents, including two that involved patient deaths.

According to the company the device, available through prescription, may produce low-energy shock, shutdown unexpectedly or be susceptible to electromagnetic noise interference. The issues might prevent defibrillation of a patient in cardiac arrest and could lead to death.

The company had received 20 instances of low-energy shock, eight instances of electromagnetic noise interference, and 11 instances of the device unexpectedly shutting down.

To the company's knowledge, the defects of the device did not contribute to the two deaths, said spokesman Jamie Arnold. "Human factors played a role in each incident: damaged device in one and failure to follow directions in the other," he said in an e-mail.

The company said customers should keep AED 10 or MRL JumpStart units in use until they receive replacements because the chance of malfunction is low.

For more information, consumers can contact the company at 888-345-5356 or visit http://www.welchallyn.com/AED10Recall.

Full post as published by Glendale Personal Injury Lawyer on March 12, 2009 (boomark / email).