Defibrillator vest saves man from death 3 times

INDIAN HARBOUR BEACH, Fla. — Regis Magyar "died" four times this year.

That is his heart went into fibrillation and stopped working — once while in the hospital, twice while at home and once as he was about to have a dinner at the Kiwi Tennis Club. The only barrier between life and death in the last three incidents, Magyar is convinced, was a lightweight wearable defibrillator called the LifeVest.

And as traumatic as the near-death experiences were for Magyar and his wife, they still manage to find some humor in the ordeals.

"I call it 'Bro,' said the 65-year-old Magyar, following a storyline from an old episode of Seinfeld.

"Well, it's really a bra," counters his wife, Pat.

Whatever unofficial name it gets, Magyar credits the LifeVest, made by the Pittsburgh-based Zoll Medical Corp., with keeping him alive long enough for doctors to implant a defibrillator into his chest to keep his heart beating normally.

Ask Magyar what he's thankful for for this Thanksgiving, and he quickly points to his doctors and the small, battery powered nylon vest with non-adhesive-sensing electrodes that shocked him back to life.

"Without it, he wouldn't be here today," Pat Magyar said.

Zoll claims the LifeVest, which will soon mark its 15-year anniversary, has been used by more than 100,000 patients since its introduction. It has a 92 percent success rate of keeping patients alive until emergency personnel can provide treatment, Zoll said.

USEFUL GADGETRY

Magyar, a former IBM researcher, started having health issues in 2004, when he had a heart attack and triple bypass surgery.

In May, he was in for an check up and was surprised when the doctor told told him to get to Holmes Regional Medical Center's emergency room immediately because his heart was racing too fast. Magyar was placed in intensive care.

"My heart stopped," he said. "It's a good thing I was in the ICU. They all jumped in helped me and actually resuscitated me."

He brush was death was mostly without memory.

"A lot of my friends, when I told them I died, all asked me the same question: 'Did you see the light?' Actually, I didn't. But it was extremely peaceful, restful. I was just very content," Magyar said. "What was frightening was when I regained consciousness."

Doctors eventually inserted three stents in his arteries and attached him to a heart pump.

The plan was to eventually implant a defibrillator in Magyar's chest. But there was bureaucratic blockage as well.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services guidelines stress that for patients to be considered for an implantable cardioverter-defibrillator (ICD) patients must not have had angioplasty such as a coronary artery bypass graftwithin the past three months. Magyar had the latter so his Melbourne-based cardiologist, Dr. Lewis Chapman Bean, suggested the LifeVest.

"To my knowledge, this is the only device that's portable and spares someone sudden death," Bean said last week as Magyar was getting a check up.

Insurance covers most of the cost, but the LifeVest runs $3,370 a month to lease.

3 MORE TIMES

The LifeVest continuously monitors the patient's heart, and if a life-threatening heart rhythm is detected, the device delivers a treatment shock to restore normal heart rhythm.

That happened three times to Magyar between June and September — hisheart stopped beating regularly and the charge from his vest kept him alive. He's almost nonchalant about the incidents.

"The last time that I died, we were at a restaurant," Magyar said. "The waitress had just given us our menu. Apparently that's when my alarm went off and everyone was looking out our table. It was embarrassing"

The staff called paramedics. That ended up being his last experience with the vest.

With his three-month threshold over, Magyar had a dual pacemaker and defibrillator placed in his chest on Oct. 21. The vest was no longer needed.

Looking back, Magyar doesn't miss the vest, but understands its value.

"Each time it worked," he said. "I was always amazed."