The citizens of Russia must have similar feelings to their U.S. counterparts when considering their security in public.

While in the U.S. we have wrestled with fears about snipers, school shootings and airline safety, the dramatic incidents over the past week in a Russian theater go to show how tenuous safety in public can be.

The theater, which held more than 700 people, was stormed during a musical performance and the theater-goers were taken hostage by Chechens demanding a Russian pull-out from Chechnya.

Moreover, the Chechen rebels indicated their willingness to execute hostages and even blow the theater up if their demands were not satisfied. The Russo-Chechen war is a bitter conflict between a giant new nation and a small region trying to break away. The tensions between Russia and Chechnya have escalated in part because of attacks on Russian citizens by Chechen rebels and President Vladimir Putin’s crackdown on the Chechen dissenters.

To intervene in the hostage situation several days after the Chechens first stormed the theater, Russian special forces took the theater back. An integral part of the operation was debilitating everyone in the theater — hostages and hostage-takers alike — by pumping gas through the ventilation system of the theater.

One in seven civilians — at least 120 people — in the theater died as result of exposure to the gas. One was shot by the Chechens. Fifty Chechen rebels died as well.

When the hostages were evacuated, the physicians overseeing their care were not told the name of the drug. Wednesday, four days after the siege ended, the Russian health minister named the drug as an aerosol version of Fentanyl, a powerful painkiller, in order to absolve the Russians of accusations the unnamed gas was a violation of international chemical weapons agreements.

While the minister claimed the Russian government had enough antidote on hand, the attending physicians were neither advised of the gas used nor provided with the antidote.

Whether the high casualties are the resulting of miscalculation, catastrophe or negligence, it is evident the Russian government failed in its responsibility to provide for the best medical care of its own citizens — the civilian hostages.

Such a practice holds potential for effectively disabling hostage takers and evacuating hostages.

However, the unacceptable number of casualties in the Russian theater confirms that such measures should only be taken after all possible medical provisions are made for the innocent civilians caught in the current of conflict.

Editorial Board: Cavan Reagan, Amber Billings, Ayrel Clark, Charlie Weaver, Rachel Faber Machacha, Zach Calef.