Thunder and lighting storms...

Truthfully Tonya I never use my wall power supply but can tell you that you have nothing to worry about. The box between your wall plug and your connection plug is a surge protector in that it will trip off before allowing an overflow of power through. 

Not sure if there is a protocol. 
When storms like that I always  switched to battery’s. 
I just wasn’t going to risk it

Hi Tonya, my husband is on his 3rd year as an LVAD patient.  I personally get nervous, too, but our LVAD system has a 30 minute internal battery back up.  The electricity went out during the night, and the internal battery worked.  We just switched him over to batteries until the electricity came back on.  Be sure and do the tests each day.  

When we talked with our LVAD team we asked if we could use surge protectors! They thought that was a great idea. Our power goes out often here. 

It’s scary to say the least. We had an all house surg protector installed before he came home. He goes to bed as usual but have flash lights and batteries by the bedside Incase of power outage. 

Installed a generac home generator, don’t worry about it at all!

Don't know there is actually a protocol but have heard recommendations about staying on batteries at night during storms but I personally do not.  Should power go out for any length of time the wall unit will go off and no one can sleep through it.  I do sit up and give it a few minutes to make sure power does come back on.  However, I do recommend you get a battery powered camp lantern to keep by your bed just in case so you can see if you should need to go on batteries.

I use batteries.   Not fun waking up to the sound from the unit that power if off.   

I have used both methods. The electric and my batteries if the storm is real bad. I do have a whole house generator on natural gas now. This would eliminate outages. Lightning strikes affecting the home are rare. Your confidence and comfort is most important and you should do what you feel comfortable and confident with doing.

I would llike to thank everyone for thier input.  I really appreciate it. I know my daughter will definately appreciate  the input. Her and i both get real nervous during storms. So once again thank you.

Hi Tonya,

Sorry I'm a little late, but I agree with Steve H.  When storms are in the area, it is not worth taking a chance, and I always switch to batteries.  We have no automatic generator, and it gets super dark with no power where we live.  It is so much harder, and stressful to switch to batteries in the dark with alarms blaring.

Best of luck!

 Cindy 

I am so surprised to see how many people use the wall outlet since my husband has never ever used wall power in the 3 years he’s had his LVAD.  Is this something that you all were instructed to do, or a personal decision?

I am so surprised to see how many people use the wall outlet since my husband has never ever used wall power in the 3 years he’s had his LVAD.  Is this something that you all were instructed to do, or a personal decision?

We live in Florida so thunderstorms and hurricanes are issues. several years ago our power was out for 2 days due to a hurricane. Our address was registered with the power company and they notified us before each storm. We were listed as one of the first to need power restored before others. I had a neighbor charge the batteries when the power did not come on soon enough as we could not get our generator to run. Check your neighbors with generators for an emergency. Our doctors were excellent in making sure the power company and the fire comppany knew thee was an L-Vad patient here.

The "official" name for the AC/wall unit is the Mobile Power Unit. The HM 3 Patient Handbook page 78 states the MPU "Powers the system when you are sleeping or relaxing indoors." Page 79 has a Warning to "Always connect to the MPU when sleeping, or when there is a chance of sleep. The system alarms may not be heard when asleep, resulting in injury or death." From personal experience, I can attest that the low battery alarm from the controller is not particularly loud, and is easily mistaken for the numerous beeps and alerts from other electronic devices. NO ONE will miss the alarm from the MPU if you're connected to it when power goes off! Plus, I like having all eight batteries fully charged a few hours after I switch to the MPU at night. I keep one set  of batteries with clips installed and ready to go on the night stand next to the bed, along with a flashlight.There's no need to panic if power goes off while you're sleeping - other than being roused from a sound sleep by an incredibly loud noise. You are not going to sleep through it, and you will have plenty of time to connect the batteries - carefully, so you don't inadvertently bend a pin. I also notified the power company, and I get a text from them whenever they anticipate power may go off, and the local fire station to be sure that I can go there for a recharge if power is off long enough to use up all my charged batteries. 

Living in FL we have thunderstorms almost daily not to mention hurricanes. My husband is always plugged directly into the wall when he's in bed regardless of the weather outside. We do have a whole house surge protector from the electric company. They install it directly behind your meter and you can check the light on it to make sure it's working.

Keep batteries close .  You will feel better knowing you have many hours of time to use.  It will ease your mind.  Also there is a list of emergency cases for people who have special needs for electricity for life.  Get on the list for first restoring your electricity . 

Susan

Hello all. My father in law recently came home with his LVAD. I know that the mobile power unit has a small battery backup for the event of power failures to give him the time to switch to his batteries. I was wondering if it is okay to plug the MPU into an uninterruptible power source. (UPS) They are basically a surge protector that have a fairly large battery to run whatever is plugged into it for a few minutes to an hour or two. The area we live in has a fairly high occurrence of power failures and I don’t really like the idea of relying on those AA batteries.

I know the manual says not to plug the unit into inverters and power strips but I wasn’t sure if something like this would fall into those categories.

The manual and your team will tell you to never sleep on batteries. It’s more about CYA than it is about medical necessity. If the manual or your team were to tell you to sleep on batteries and you didn’t hear an alarm and ended up running out of juice you could theoretically die! Imagine the lawsuit that would bring? I myself am far more comfortable being on batteries than plugged into a cord that limits my range and creates a major tripping hazard. There is no way I would be plugged in during any type of electrical storm. I’ve had my HM3 for over 5yrs now and my batteries easily make it 15 hours before I need to change them out.