Truck driver is first at MUSC Health Columbia to get innovative new defibrillator

Christopher McCarthy, who almost died after a catastrophic crash, has become the first patient at MUSC Health in Columbia to get a new kind of heart defibrillator that helps keep him alive.

“I’ve got grandkids I want to see grow up. I have two sons I want to see get married. I’ve got a wife I want to get older with.” 

 

McCarthy was hurt in late 2020 while driving a truck at work. “It was a real bad accident. I broke 10 ribs. I broke my leg; they literally had to revive me twice. And brain damage. It was terrible,” he said.

“I had to learn how to walk all over again. From the trauma, my heart became weak. They noticed it when I was in the hospital. And so they started trying different things to treat it, to get it stronger, but it just wouldn't get stronger.”

That’s when surgeon John Sutton, M.D., told McCarthy about the extravascular implantable cardioverter-defibrillator, or EV-ICD. 

Defibrillators are devices that send an electrical current to the heart to regulate it. Most are implanted in the upper left part of the chest. They’re connected with wires that go through veins to the heart. In contrast, the EV-ICD goes under the left arm, and its wire goes behind the sternum instead of through a vein.

“There are some cases where you want to keep the defibrillator’s wiring outside of the bloodstream,” Sutton said. For example, that can be true for people who have had medical procedures affecting the bloodstream. It’s also an important consideration for people who have had bloodstream infections or are expected to live for a long time.

“We know that when we have things intravascularly (through the veins) that they can break, and then there’s a risk to taking them out and replacing them,” Sutton said.

Sutton said the EV-ICD’s location isn’t its only asset. The device is also multi-modal, he said, capable of responding to sudden cardiac arrest and abnormal heart rhythms with both defibrillation and pacing. And it has a relatively long battery life of more than 11 years.

McCarthy was sold. “I wanted that reassurance. If my heart stops, I wanted something that's going to jog it back into action. I wanted to live,” he said.

Sutton has implanted the new defibrillator in other patients since McCarthy got his. The surgeon is hoping to get the word out to more cardiologists that it’s an option for patients. So far, Sutton is one of only two doctors offering EV-ICDs in the state.

McCarthy also wants to get the word out to other people with heart problems who might be good candidates for the device. “I would want them to think about having the reassurance. Because knowing that my heart is weak and can stop at any time, I like to know that if it does stop, I have protection.”