Then-Vice President Dick Cheney was so paranoid that terrorists would hack into his implanted defibrillator and kill him that in 2007 he had his doctor disable the lifesaving device’s wireless function, according to a new report.
The ex-veep told CBS’ “60 Minutes” in an interview that will be aired Sunday that he feared terrorists had the technology to send the device a fatal shock.
A few years later, he was watching an episode of the Showtime series “Homeland,” and that very scenario was a part of the plot, he told Dr. Sanjay Gupta during the interview.
“I was aware of the danger if you will that existed but I found [the show] credible. Because I know from the experience we had and the necessity for adjusting my own device that it was an accurate portrayal of what was possible,” he said of the show’s plot.
The Republican lightning rod opened up about his heart woes, which included five heart attacks, multiple angioplasties and catheterizations, and a quadruple bypass operation.