The 911 call between an emergency dispatcher and a nurse at a California retirement home is so chilling, so horrifying, I had to listen to it twice to make sure I had heard right -- it so defied the most basic tenets of compassion and human decency, writes Ana Veciana Suarez. On the tape, Bakersfield fire dispatcher Tracey Halvorson can be heard pleading with a caller from Glenwood Gardens Retirement Facility to perform CPR on an 87-year-old resident who had collapsed in the dining room. When the dispatcher asks if the woman is breathing, the nurse replies, "Barely." The dispatcher tells the nurse to start CPR, but the nurse refuses. She says staff is not permitted to perform CPR at the facility. (I guess that's like saying, "Sorry, I can't stop to help the bleeding motorist by the road because the traffic sign on the shoulder says 'No Stopping or Standing.'") Read more here.
