Tiny pacemaker saves karate champion’s career

A 37-year-old karate champion has become one of the first people in the country to have an upgraded version of the world’s smallest pacemaker implanted inside her heart.

Mairi Kerin, a PHD mechanical engineering student at the University of Birmingham, said the device – the size of a vitamin pill – has saved her martial arts career as a traditional pacemaker fitted near to her skin could have been kicked in a match.

Her condition means her heart forgets to beat and the ventricle and atrium are out of sync. The Micra AV Transcatheter Pacing System ensures the heart chambers beat in synchrony.