Impaled
San Francisco Fire Department officers, responding to reports of a traumatic injury in Potrero Hill, found a man in his 40s who had “impaled himself somewhere in the groin area” while trying to get over a spike-tipped fence near the intersection of Kansas and 22nd streets, Fire Department spokesperson Mariano Elias said. According to Elias, the Heavy Rescue team decided to cut the fence, rather than remove the man from it. While they were lowering him the cut piece of metal fence fell from the wound. Paramedics wrapped the injury and transported the bloke to San Francisco General Hospital. There’s an encampment near the freeway, with those trying to access it occasionally getting stuck in the fence, though generally not so dramatically.
Smashed
Last month the Potrero Avenue Walgreens was significantly damaged after a car rammed into it during the early morning hours. San Francisco police officers responding to reports of a burglary at the store found the destruction and an unoccupied car left at the scene. No suspects were seen entering the beleaguered business, and there were no reports of stolen items. Police said that two other automobiles accompanying the weaponized vehicle fled southbound on Potrero Avenue. No arrests have been made in the incident. Will the locking up of items at Walgreens have to extend to entire stores, with one customer allowed in at a time..?
Resigned
The California College of the Arts’ provost, Tammy Rae Carland, will step down next month after serving in the position for nine years. TT Takemoto, CCA’s former dean of humanities and sciences, will serve as interim provost; Carland will return as a faculty member following a sabbatical. CCA faces significant budget deficits amidst a sharp decline in student enrollment, recording a $20 million shortfall in August, with the school pondering layoffs or a merger. Registration peaked at 1,800 students in 2019; 1,295 enrolled this fall. The only accredited nonprofit art college in Northern California, CCA opened a $123 million campus expansion last month, funded by donations, which added more than 80,000 square feet of classroom and studio space and finalized consolidation of its Oakland and San Francisco campuses. The population of people willing and able to pay CCA’s $55,000 rack rate tuition, with slim prospects of making a decent living in the arts after graduating, is waning. At last month’s holiday sale, dozens of students gamely offered arty stickers, drawings, and jewelry, with a vibe that mixed gender non-conformity with a desperate need to be seen and appreciated. The political and social tide seems to be going against them.
AIed
Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital doctors are deploying artificial intelligence to analyze medical scans, helping them diagnose patients with elevated stroke risks. Menlo Park company RapidAI has a five-year, $400,000 contract with General to field software to examine computed tomography scans and magnetic resonance imaging. RapidAI uses an algorithm trained on millions of images to spot suspected large vessel blockages within minutes after a scan, flagging higher risks of strokes or aneurysms. The future marches forward.