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Man dies of heart failure after museum refuses to share defibrillator (www.sfchronicle.com)

submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by Wertheimer@hexbear.net to c/chapotraphouse@hexbear.net

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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

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[-] charly4994@hexbear.net 18 points 1 year ago

Maybe it's because I work in healthcare, but the idea of just saying "no, you can't have this life saving device" makes no sense. Dude was ready to hand over everything he had on him to just get the device. There was an incident at work where we noticed a man had fallen on the sidewalk just outside our unit, two of the nurses went to check on him while I stayed on the unit. They helped him get up and got him over to a bench. He did not want any help or an ambulance to be called but eventually we'd hear from the supervisor "technically it puts us at risk of liability because he's not our patient." Nobody was punished for it because nobody would really go and say "you see someone in distress, you do nothing." They went and helped and I made sure that should something have happened on the unit, I was ready to immediately respond.

I would imagine that Good Samaritan laws would shield the nurses that went outside because they went and assisted to the best of their ability, but I have no idea how the organization would be held liable potentially.