LIFELINE

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What, I wondered, was that little green-framed box on the wall of my local bank?

Turned out to be an Automated External Defibrillator (AED) but I hadn't recognised this one at a distance.

Hang on a minute. There's something distinctly odd about this one.

Closer inspection revealed that there was no defibrillator. It had been STOLEN, on one dark evening in the middle of July.

Now who the hell would steal a defibrillator? Was it an act of pure vandalism? Or was it a planned theft with an outlet already set up for the stolen property?

You'd wonder who would have a use for it until you think of the many people around with heart conditions. Someone may not have wanted to spend the thousand odd euro on a machine but would settle for a bargain falling off the back of a lorry.

There are many CTV cameras in the complex but I don't know if any of them cover that particular spot. The naming of a precise time in the notice suggests that the thief was likely picked up at some stage of the operation and no doubt the Garda are keeping their eyes open around the place.

Nevertheless I suspect the chances of recovery are slim and the whole thing does pose difficult questions for the future.

The instore defibrillator is under lock and key. Not a problem, once the store is open there will be someone there to open it up. By their nature, the outside locations need to be directly available to the public. Limiting access to authorised first responders would severely limit their usefulness. So it is really a question of trust, and what is that worth in this modern world?

Just to emphasise the point. The above is a list of locations of defibrillators around Raheny. The bank one isn't listed so I guess it may have been very recent. It does seem to have a particular importance, though. It would be the only one accessible 24/7, and also the only one available when the other locations listed are closed.

I am reminded of the analogous position of lifebuoys along a river or canal. The vandal or prankster here has tweaked the sign to reverse its meaning. Dangerous enough you might say. But at least they didn't nick the buoy while they were at it.

The text here applies equally to both devices.

I am a little more sensitive to these matters since I started following up my family history and came across three drownings of close relatives.

My maternal grandfather drowned in the Liffey in 1918. His brother had already drowned in Ranikhet, India, in 1892 while serving with the British Army. And a paternal uncle drowned in the River Suck in Ballinasloe in 1922 in controversial circumstances linked to both gender and sectarian considerations.

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Update 9/10/2016

The stolen defibrillator has now been replaced. I trust it is now under the scrutiny of one or more of the security cameras on the site.

The Mousetrap

When we moved to Ballybrack I was just about to head into my teens, and I was full of curiosity.

Imagine my delight to find a very strange object in a stairway cupboard, left behind by the previous occupants. It was a sort of tin in a wooden frame with rectangular bit sticking out at the bottom. It was about a foot high and the rectangular bit was about 6 inches long. It didn't take me long to figure out that it was a self-resetting mousetrap. A really beautiful piece of work.

Many times since, I have tried to explain how it worked to friends and acquaintances only to leave them as mystified when I'd finished as before I'd started.

So here is the definitive illustrated version.

The mouse enters the rectangular compartment, from the left, to have a go at the cheese, on the right of the compartment.

As he passes the midpoint, the floor, which is on a pivot, tilts to the right. This closes the door behind him, and, incidentally, resets the platform at the top of the can back into the horizontal position.

Unfortunately for him, the cheese is behind a grill so he can't get at it. And the only way out is up. As he climbs up the passage, he passes through a gravity trap, which he can push out of the way as he goes up, but which is then closed to him, cutting off his "escape" back down.

So the only way to go is further up and walk the plank, so to speak. His weight on the plank pivots it down and he falls in the water and drowns. Meanwhile the pivoting of the plank has reset the door to open, ready for the next mouse.

QED

Bet you thought this was going to be a literary post.

Required legal notice:
No real mice have been harmed in the cutting off of the mouse's tail in Photoshop.