A defibrillator is a machine that delivers a targeted, measured amount of electricity to a heart that is either in something called ventricular fibrillation or ventricular tachycardia.
The fast-moving infection and massive tissue destruction can lead to fever and tachycardia, and can even progress to hypotension, shock, and eventually death - within just a few hours.
When it's hooked up, you'll be able to see the rhythm that the heart is in, you'll be able to tell is that person in ventricular fibrillation or ventricular tachycardia.
This type where it goes up from ventricle to atrium, is called Atrioventricular reentrant tachycardia (or AVRT) with orthodromic conduction, and can lead to very high ventricular rates, between 200 and 300 bpm.
In rare situations, an ectopic focus can trigger ventricular tachycardia or even ventricular fibrillation, which are more serious arrhythmias where the ventricles beat too quickly to fill up with an adequate amount of blood.
Automaticity of the purkinje fibers may lead to the development of one or more ectopic pacemaker sites in the ventricles causing ventricular premature beats, tachycardia and fibrillation.