There’s never really a good place to have a medical emergency, but sitting on an airplane is certainly far from ideal, as Kristen Bull knows all too well.
Bull was on an airplane on the tarmac at a South Carolina airport in October 2015 when her implanted cardioverter defibrillator (ICD) malfunctioned and fired six times. She was taken to the Grand Strand Regional Medical Center, however, the hospital was not equipped to deactivate the device, which was manufactured by St. Jude Medical and used the company’s Riata ST lead. A St. Jude representative came to the hospital the next morning to deactivate Bull’s ICD, and she was placed in a Life Vest, according to court documents.
