To
David's point, while you can make the arguement "you can't put a cost on human life," the fact of the matter is we always make decisions about just how far we'll go to safeguard human life, and cost is typically the biggest hurdle. While we've made cars and highways safer and buildings more hurricane/earthquake resistant, there's far more room for improvements we already have the know how to employ... but who's gonna pay for them? We're always weighing how safe we can make things against what it will take to do so. It's often just a matter of time... things that once seemed infeasible (if not impossible), are now commonplace. Probably just a matter of time before AED's are all over the place.
Other practical concerns:
At $2K a pop, they aren't as much as I thought. But what's involved in installing one?
Do they require any sort of ongoing maintenence?
Don't forget, they could save the life of someone else in the park who may not even be involved with DG.
Even if they were made available to public parks, unless private entities donated them (or the funds for them) and specifically stated they're to be installed near the DG course, they might not even get placed near courses. I'd think park officials would have to assess the following risk factors to determine where they should go:
- What various activities take place in the park, and where in the park do they occur?
- What is the risk of that activity resulting in a heart attack?
- How many people engage in those activies?
Not you've collected some of the data you'd need to make an informed decision about best locations to put an AED within the park to save the most lives.
Considering there are activities far more strenuous than disc golf that take place in most parks (jogging, mountain biking, swimming, etc...) and more people doing them, what are the chances park management would even decide to place them near the course?
I'm simply taking a practical approach to this.