‘Insufficient sedation’: Woman’s faulty heart monitor prompted needless surgery that she was left awake for, lawsuit says

Background: An empty hospital bed (Nuttapol Pingpittayakun/Shutterstock). Inset: A Zoll Laboratory medical device (Andrew Irwin).

Background: An empty hospital bed (Nuttapol Pingpittayakun/Shutterstock). Inset: A Zoll Laboratory medical device (Andrew Irwin).

It was one horrible experience after another for a 33-year-old woman in Iowa who claims that a faulty heart rate monitor led her to undergo an unnecessary and traumatic surgery that she wasn’t even sufficiently sedated for — so she was left awake during the procedure.

Arkeny, Iowa, couple Andrea and John Irwin filed their civil complaint against heart monitor manufacturer Zoll Laboratory Services LLC and its subsidiary Zoll Medical, based in Pennsylvania and Massachusetts respectively.

According to the complaint obtained by Law&Crime on Thursday, Andrea Irwin says that in August 2023 she had an allergic reaction to migraine medication that prompted her to end up in the emergency room in Des Moines.