By Jeb Phillips
The Columbus Dispatch
COLUMBUS, Ohio — At least nine life-saving defibrillators have been stolen from two Columbus hospitals since November, and police and hospital officials aren’t sure why a thief would want them.
“That’s not an item you could get rid of,” said Lt. Michael Woods of Columbus’ burglary squad. “A laptop (computer) — people will purchase a laptop. But there’s only one use for this.”
Defibrillators give electrical shocks to an erratically beating heart in an effort to return the beating to normal.
The five stolen from the Ohio State University Medical Center are models that sit on “crash carts” and are easily accessible in hallways and other areas for cardiac emergencies, said Bob Howard, the hospital’s director of clinical engineering.
They appear to have been stolen over the weekends of Dec. 12 and 13 and Dec. 19 and 20, Howard said. Four were taken from units at the Arthur G. James Cancer Hospital while those units were closed to patients. Another was taken from a regularly operating nursing unit in Rhodes Hall.
Howard said two cost $10,000 each, and three cost $15,000 each.
Columbus police reports indicate that at least four others were taken from Riverside Methodist Hospital. Three went missing from Riverside’s McConnell Heart Hospital between Nov. 16 and 23. Another was stolen from Riverside between Nov. 23 and Dec. 3. A police report values the first three at $12,000 each. The value of the fourth was unclear.
Ohio Health, Riverside’s parent company, said in an e-mailed statement that “various health-care devices,” including defibrillators and heart monitors, have been stolen from Riverside and Grant Medical Center.
It wasn’t immediately clear from Columbus police reports what devices had been stolen from Grant. But Columbus police arrested a man at Grant on Thursday who might be connected to the thefts, said Woods. The man admitted having three laptop computers in his suitcase and was charged with burglary.
Police will compare his image with hospital surveillance video to see whether he is a suspect in the other thefts, Woods said. None of the defibrillators has been recovered.
The thefts haven’t affected patient care, both Ohio Health and OSU Medical Center officials say. Both have backup or replacement devices on hand. The primary issue is the expense of the stolen property, Ohio Health said in its statement. The company will look at new ways to secure the devices while still leaving them quickly available to hospital staff members, according to the statement.
All nine devices were manufactured by Physio-Control Inc., based in Redmond, Wash.
Jennifer Roth, a Physio-Control spokeswoman, said yesterday that she had never heard of similar thefts and that she knew of no black market for large defibrillators. Smaller individual defibrillators might be taken but not ones designed for hospital use, she said.
Woods said Columbus police had never seen this crime either.
He said investigators still are trying to learn “if there is a special reason that (a defibrillator) is targeted, or if it’s just that it is left unattended.”
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