Vice President Cheney shakes hands with Admiral Edmund Giambastiani at a retirement ceremony for the officer in Annapolis, Md., Friday July 27, 2007. (AP Photo/Kathleen Lange)
by Mark Silva
Vice President Dick Cheney, who wears a heart defibrillator following four heart attacks, will undergo minor surgery on Saturday to replace a device in need of a new battery.
“During the vice president’s annual physical examination in June, testing of his implantable cardioverter-defibrillator indicated that the device’s battery has reached the level where elective replacement of the device is recommended,” said spokeswoman Megan McGinn, Doctors must replace the entire device to replace the battery, she said, and that will be done at George Washington University Hospital.
The defibrillator was implanted in June 2001 to shock his heart if he suffers an irregular heartbeat. Cheney, 66, has suffered four heart attacks and has undergone quadruple bypass surgery, two artery-clearing angioplasties and the operation to implant the defibrillator.
