Mind my pacemaker

I worked on a cardiology ward and a man came in for a pacemaker check. I was getting him ready and pulled off an old electrode dot (sticky round thing for cardiac monitor/ ECG leads) . It was peeling away and quite congealed with dirt. He went bananas. “What are you doing? You’ve pulled my pacemaker off!” He then clutched at his heart as if expecting to keel over at any second. When he calmed down, I explained that it was just a sticky conductor thing and that the pacemaker was inside his heart. He told me he hadn’t washed that area for six months and ‘minded it’ all the time. “I thought it didn’t seem very safe...”