An Iowan with a harrowing story to tell is scheduled to testify today on Capitol Hill as a U.S. Senate committee discusses manufacturers' liability when medical devices fail. Mike Mulvihill, 64, of Bettendorf was driving through Ohio en route to the East Coast two years ago when his internal defibrillator went off repeatedly. The jolts of electricity into his chest were excruciating, making it difficult for him to guide his car - with his wife alongside him - through a construction zone and to the shoulder.

After emergency surgery at Ohio State University, Mulvihill recovered from what doctors told him were more than 20 unexpected charges to his heart over the course of an hour. Trauma and effects of the ordeal prompted him to retire a year early from nearly 30 years as a golf course irrigation-system salesman. Today, he hopes his story will inform members of the Senate's Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee as they consider writing legislation to allow individual medical device users to sue the manufacturers. Last year, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that manufacturers of medical devices approved by the Food and Drug Administration were shielded from individual product liability lawsuits.