Tesla study includes Dayton hospital patients

Rachel Murray/STAFF

Rachel Murray/STAFF

Dayton patients were part of a new study that indicated driving a Tesla won’t interfere with a defibrillator.

The American Heart Association said in a statement that preliminary research found sitting in or standing close to the charging port of a Tesla electric vehicle didn’t trigger a shock or interfere with implantable defibrillator performance.

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The study included 26 men and eight women from Good Samaritan Hospital, a Premier Health affiliated hospital in Dayton.

Researchers examined the potential effect of electromagnetic interference while charging an electric vehicle battery at 220 Volts. The patients in the study had an average age of 69 and had implanted cardiac defibrillators of various types.

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Adjusting the defibrillators to both their least and most sensitive settings, the devices did not sense the electromagnetic signal from the electric vehicle battery when patients sat in the driver’s seat, passenger seat, backseat or at the charging post.

These findings suggest that electric vehicles may be safe to use for individuals with cardiac defibrillators, according to the principal investigator, Abdul Wase, M.D. and his team.

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