Death by klaxon

OR: "This is ordinary time"

photo cred: my dad

Madeline Warner was killed by an excess of alarms. Her death certificate says “cardiac arrest,” but the real cause was the beeps, boops, whines, and buzzes of her hospital ward, which drowned out the “low battery” alert on Warner’s cardiac monitor. When the 77-year-old Warner later had a heart attack, no alarm sounded, and no one notic…