After Gary Hobish collapsed while swing-dancing with friends in Golden Gate Park Sunday, a fellow dancer raced to the nearby de Young Museum in search of a defibrillator. Most people in the group knew Hobish, 70, had a heart condition. Seconds counted.
Inside the museum, Tim O’Brien found himself pleading with a staff member to let him use the life-saving device, or to accompany him back to where Hobish, a legend of the Bay Area music scene, lay unconscious. O’Brien offered the museum staffer his wallet and his watch as collateral.
The museum staffer checked with his boss, but the answer was firm: The de Young defibrillator could not leave the building.
O’Brien sprinted empty handed back to the group, where a doctor who had luckily been on the scene was administering CPR. Paramedics arrived a few minutes later, but by then nearly 10 minutes had gone by, O’Brien said.
But I’m sure it wouldn’t interest anybody outside of a small circle of friends
Was there an ethical obligation to share the defibrillator?
The answer is not obvious.
Next paragraph.
Officials and experts said there was apparently no legal obligation for the de Young to share the device.
They highlighted several complicating considerations: What if the staffer had lent it out, and minutes later someone at the museum collapsed and needed it, they asked. And why should he lend it quickly to a distressed stranger, not knowing if it was a thief trying to make off with a device that usually costs around $2,000?
What if two people at the museum collapse at the same time and require defibrillating? What if the thief actually needed that money to save 3 lives?
I know what motherfucker ghostwrote this drivel.
“I would rather someone die than risk breaking an arbitrary rule that carries no consequences” - America, 2023
This happens with healthcare policies too; you follow the policy to death vs break it to save a life.
uhh, just take it dude.
Yep you gotta take it. “A man outside is dying. I am taking this. Call the cops if you want but you aren’t stopping me.”
There is a non-zero change the cops would have shown up and shot the Samaritan, the person with the heart attack and the defibrillator.
It wouldn’t have crossed my mind to even ask in the first place to be honest, just grab it.
The ones I’ve seen are locked. You’d have to hold them up for the code or key.
This is what happens when society is centered around profit. The need of the institution to avoid liability, potential liability, is put higher than a person’s life. The staff member probably feared they’d lose their job or be retaliated against if they made a real decision. The boss made a choice to defend the institution at any cost.
What a fucked up system.
Life saving necessities are right there and they’re systematically denied to the ones who need them. We have enough housing to house the homeless. We have enough food to feed the hungry. We have enough medicine to heal the world. Yet doing all these things is a threat to profit, and so instead we feed bodies into the profit grinder, and the capitalists become rich and powerful on their blood.
I value efficiency so much and that makes me sad that the defibulator didnt get used. People made it for that purpose. Its an insult to any of the workers who loved their jobs.
“We are deeply saddened to learn about the death of Gary Hobish in Golden Gate Park,” museum Director of Communications Helena Nordstrom said in emails to the Chronicle. “We don’t know exactly what happened and are trying to determine the facts.
“We don’t permit technical equipment beyond laptops to leave the building without permission. Then again, the event has prompted us to review the museums’ emergency response procedures for events that may occur outside the museum premises in the future so we can be as helpful as possible.”
- do not admit responsibility of any kind (“we are sorry” can be interpreted an admission of guilt).
- do not admit even a cursory understanding of the reported sequence of events that took place
- investigate internally
- imply internal examination of policies
CYA, the most american of moves.
any building open to the public and hosting an organization that has received > 1 cent of public assistance, tax credits, in-kind contributions or anything i’m not thinking of should be required to have these and make them available to anyone who asks. it should just be baked into the “cost of doing anything” like potable water, stable structures or other features of public safety. $2k ain’t shit. hell, we pay cops 3x that a month in the most podunk ass towns to take naps in their cars and shoot pets.
