Michael Ford was not in good health, but his type 2 diabetes was manageable. His son, Davonte Ford, was his full-time caregiver — dutifully bathing Michael, giving him his medication and responding to dips and spikes in Michael’s blood sugar.
When father and son awoke one November morning in their Oakland, Calif. home to Michael’s Freestyle Libre 3 Plus sensor, part of a high-end glucose monitoring system from medical manufacturer Abbott, home to a low blood sugar alert, Davonte didn’t question the reading. Instead, he did what the doctor prescribed: he fed his father fast-acting carbohydrates.
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Davonte didn’t know that eight days later, Abbott would issue an emergency warning to US consumers that nearly 3 million Freestyle Libre 3 and Libre 3 Plus sensors were at risk of producing falsely low readings, and that the company had received reports of seven deaths and more than 730 serious injuries worldwide. Davonte, 25, said in a lawsuit filed last month that he had no idea the number appearing on Michael’s device that morning was “catastrophically wrong.”
So when a cup of coffee with two tablespoons of sugar spiked Michael’s blood sugar, Davonte brought him another. The number on Michael’s monitor went up but then went back down.
A normal glucose range is about 70 to 180 milligrams per deciliter, with lower levels expected during fasting. Noticing that Michael’s level was around 68 mg/dL, Davonte offered him a cup of sweet tea and a cookie, hoping to get the number up.
Instead, Michael’s speech slowed down. His eyelids grew heavy. Panicked, Davonte called an ambulance. When the paramedics arrived, Davonte was stunned to see Michael’s blood sugar reading on their equipment: 551 mg/dL, three times higher than it should be.
“My heart just dropped,” Davonte said. “Obviously, there’s a problem here.”
The lawsuit states that the discovery that Michael’s blood sugar was not as low as his glucose monitor indicated came too late. The next day, in the hospital’s intensive care unit, Michael, 68, died after multiple cardiac arrests.
Diabetes, in which the body does not produce enough insulin or does not use it properly, requires patients to monitor their blood sugar carefully. It affects an estimated 40.1 million people in the US uncontrolled, causing serious complications ranging from blindness to heart and kidney damage.
The Abbott recall addresses the growing reliance on technology to help diabetes patients and the risks to their physical and mental health when that technology malfunctions. The recall prompted at least three proposed class action lawsuits in the US, as well as Davonte’s wrongful death lawsuit. Three other people in California, Washington and North Carolina plan to sue for damages, their lawyers told NBC News after they suffered from inaccurate readings.
Patients and advocates have raised questions about whether the recall was comprehensive enough and whether the actual number of injuries could be higher than the 860 cited by Abbott in his latest count. Michael’s death is not counted in Abbot’s account; While their sensor came from one of the recalled locations, Abbott did not include its specific serial number in the recall.
Abbott spokeswoman Lindsey Delko told NBC News that the company is “deeply saddened” by Michael’s death and that it takes seriously, documents and investigates all adverse event reports.
Delco said not all sensors in each lot are affected by the problem and that not all adverse events are related to the recent recall, adding that anyone experiencing problems should contact Abbott customer service.
He said the faulty readings that led to the recall were caused by a production line problem, which was quickly fixed. The company has yet to respond to Davonte’s lawsuit in court.
When continuous glucose monitors debuted two decades ago, they were a “total game changer” for diabetes patients, says Dr. Amy Warner said. A reliable but tedious alternative to fingersticks that require diabetics to take small amounts of blood throughout the day to check their sugar levels, continuous glucose monitors automatically detect blood sugar levels in a fluid just below the surface of the skin with tiny filaments on sensors attached to patients’ arms. Abbott’s sensors, about the size of a two-coin stack, typically cost up to $20 a month for patients covered by commercial insurance systems, and they provide 24/7 data that doctors say is reliable.
“But it’s technology, and unfortunately, technology can break. And when that happens, it’s a life-or-death situation,” Warner said.
There are minor recalls associated with continuous glucose monitors. In 2024, Abbott recalled several Libre 3 sensors due to erroneously high readings. Another major manufacturer, Dexcom, recalled hundreds of thousands of receivers linked to its monitors in 2016 and again in 2025 because of audio problems that caused missed alerts after several injuries. A Dexcom spokesperson said in an email this week that the issues had been resolved.
Some diabetes patients who have used Abbott’s sensors say it’s terrifying to discover flaws in the device they rely on to stay alive. Angela Ivory, 71, who lives in Spruce Pine, North Carolina, said she went to the emergency room several times after her Libre 3 alerted her that her blood sugar was low, before receiving a recall notice from her pharmacy. At the hospital, a finger stick showed her glucose levels were normal, she said.
She began having nightmares in which late relatives warned her about her health and she feared she would die in her sleep. She now uses finger stick readings, but she said she has permanent anxiety.
“I don’t go out and socialize like I used to,” she said. “When I got out I was paranoid. I think my sugar was crashing.”
Late last year, Kathy Bennett, 67, of Statham, Georgia, started receiving alerts from her Abbott Continuous Glucose Monitor that her blood sugar was in the 60s. When she checked it with a finger stick, it was in the 170s or 180s. Her sensors’ serial numbers aren’t listed on Abbott’s recall website, but she believes they should have been. She has encountered others on social media who have said the same thing.
“It’s very disappointing,” he said, adding that he liked the device and plans to try using it again. “It helped motivate me to make better food choices.”
The recall highlighted the potential for dangerous confusion after the product had to be removed – even in large hospitals. An endocrinologist who works at a regional trauma center in the Mid-Atlantic mentioned in an NBC News interview that Abbott sent a patient home from the hospital with the device. Later, he called back to share a surprising discovery: He checked the serial number of the sensor he had given his patient and realized it was part of a recall. He immediately called the patient to arrange a replacement and asked the hospital to throw out the box of recovered sensors.
While continuous glucose monitors are generally considered accurate, the American Diabetes Association said in an email that finger sticks should be available as a backup, especially if symptoms don’t match the monitor’s readings.
In Miramar, Florida, Philip Myers, an ocean veteran, relied solely on his freestyle libre until one evening in June saw more than 200 readings from the 50s. He stopped using it.
Six months later, he received a letter from the Department of Veterans Affairs informing him that his sensor had been revoked. The letter did not mention the deaths related to the restoration, and when he and his wife learned about them from a reporter, they became emotional.
“When I was in the military, I was in control and I made the decisions,” said Myers, 80. Trying to manage his diabetes, especially with an imprecise device, is “very frustrating, to tell you the truth, because you’re not in control,” he said.
Delco, a spokeswoman for Abbott, did not respond to questions about the specific cases and said in an email that the manufacturer “cares deeply about the safety and quality of our products and the people who use them.”
“That is why we constantly check how they are performing and if we identify a problem, we take action to correct it,” he said.
Davonte and Michael Ford relied entirely on Michael’s continuous glucose monitor, not knowing based on Abbott’s “woefully inadequate” warnings that the sensor could malfunction, Davonte’s lawsuit says.
Davonte tries to remember his father — a selfless man who loved playing the piano — instead of his father’s painful final moments, which he said traumatized him and left him feeling empty. He said that he is also fighting against the sense of guilt.
“I thought I made a mistake,” he said. “Everything was always good – until it wasn’t.”
