The guardian heart device monitors your heart for signs of a heart attack

TAMPA - "I thought it was heartburn."  Thirty-one-year-old Jimmie McCray wears his story on his chest. “I had this warm feeling in my chest like it was on fire."

First, with a tattoo that reads "God gave me a heart with a second chance." Jimmie says, “You could just see the EKG spike and as it spiked the doctor looked at me and said you just had a heart attack. As they’re dragging me up, I'm literally thinking I'm about to die."

Underneath the tattooed word "chance" is a new scar where a heart device was recently implanted that could give Jimmie a renewed chance at staying alive. “I’m praying. I’m repenting. I'm asking the Lord if I did anything wrong please forgive me.”

Jimmie is participating in a clinical trial at Florida Hospital Pepin Heart Institute to see if this guardian device implanted in Jimmie’s chest saves lives by alerting patients like him that another heart event is underway and they need to get to an ER ASAP.

Abigail Ensign is the trial RN coordinator. “The device is inserted here in a pocket under the skin. The lead is wrapped and taken down into the heart and set in the right ventricle at the apex where you get the best EKG picture.”

The EKG is read 24-7 in a loop. It can tell if the rhythm changes or if a clot is obstructing blood flow. The device buzzes under the skin to alert a patient.  

A wireless external pager also goes off telling you if it's an emergency or if you just need to call a doctor.

Jimmie says, “I haven’t been able to sleep good. I go to bed one, two three o’clock in the morning.”

But, since the Guardian was implanted, Jimmie’s mother Felecia says, “I see a difference in him. He goes out with his friends now.  For while, he wouldn’t go out of the house. He’d come back from work and stay in the house. He’d get back from church and stay in the house. Now I call him. Are you at home? No.”

Jimmie says it gives him a piece of mind to have a back up system.

The trial is three to five years long and won’t cost the patient a thing. To find out the details of the clinical trial and find out if you or a loved one qualifies call 813-610-8110 or go to www.angel-med.com.