Originally reported by Ars Technica, a Georgia woman received an implant in her abdomen that prevented blood clots way back in 2009. Two years later, that small medical device dislodged from her abdomen and busted out of her leg like the Xenomorph in Alien.
Tonya Brand had an IVC, or Inferior Vena Cava, filter implanted in her abdomen to prevent blood clots from forming after undergoing spinal surgery.
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The IVC is a huge vein that delivers deoxygenated blood from the lower back to the heart. The IVC filter is designed to catch any clots that could form and move up to the heart and cause massive trouble. Soon, pieces of the filter started breaking off and moving around.
On May 7, 2011, Tonya felt a pain in her right thigh. It got worse and worse until she eventually sought a doctor’s advice. They thought it was a blood clot until an ultrasound revealed that it was a one-and-a-half-inch shard of—something. A few weeks later, the area started to bulge. Brandy put some pressure on the area and POP! That shard revealed itself by poking through her skin.
Finally, she could see what it was. It was a metal wire, originally a part of the IVC implanted inside of her two years earlier. It turns out the IVC was a piece of shit that was disintegrating, allowing various pieces to migrate to different places in her body.
One of those pieces got lodged near her spine. Doctors determined that it would have been way too dangerous to remove it. She went under the knife again in July 2011 to remove the rest of her filter but the surgeons couldn’t do it. It had broken up so much that they couldn’t get all the pieces out of her.
With these pieces of metal floating around inside of her threatening to do all sorts of harm, she sued the company that makes the filter, Cook Medical. That lawsuit would eventually reveal that the IVC filter Cook manufactured was completely unsafe yet made it past approval processes by withholding tons of vital information, like how their devices were constantly breaking during animal trials and linked to a series of suspicious deaths.
Brand is still alive with the pieces of filter stuck inside of her that she gets checked every so often. She eventually settled her lawsuit with Cook, hopefully taking them for all that they’re worth.
