Calm Before the Storm: An Uncomplicated Epicardial Lead Extraction Resulting in DIC and Patient Demise.

A previously stable 77-year-old man with significant cardiac history underwent an uneventful extraction of a Citrobacter-infected and eroded pacemaker lead. His postoperative course was acutely complicated by respiratory failure and quickly progressed into disseminated intravascular coagulation, acute renal failure, shock liver, and ventricular tachycardic arrest. I believe that this is the first case report of such a drastic turn of events after a routine pacemaker lead extraction.