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Did you read the article? Here's some more:

State officials do not track ventilator use but probably will begin to do that, said Minnesota Health Department spokesman John Stieger. But a department survey on Tuesday found that 83 percent of the 950 beds in hospital ICUs were in use, compared with 85 percent last week. Hospital officials say ICUs usually are about 80 percent full.
Some health planners such as Hick have warned for several years that with ICUs running near capacity, a major disaster or flu outbreak could "tip us over the balance and people would die for lack of ventilators."
Hick has urged state officials to stockpile ventilators, "but in a year when we're cutting health care spending, buying ventilators at $50,000 each in case of emergency is kind of a hard sell. (The state has 37 portable ventilators placed around the state for training, but available for emergencies.)
Turning away patients
At Abbott Northwestern Hospital, "our two ICUs -- 55 beds -- were totally full last week, and for a couple days we couldn't take any more critically ill patients," said Dr. Kevin Graham, a cardiologist and president of the hospital's Minneapolis Heart Institute. "We had at least one patient headed our way who we diverted to another hospital."
"I was wearing a pager night and day because we were right at the edge," he said. "I've been doing this for 20 years, and last week the situation was extraordinary."
At the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, "we were close enough to capacity that we rented four ventilators ... to make sure we had enough capacity in case we had a rush of admissions," said Curt Buck, director of respiratory care services. "We were told by the rental companies that we took the last four they had."
It was the first time in more than a year that Mayo's more than 100 ventilators were not adequate, Buck said. "And this is not usually our busy season. Not as many people from outside the region come here for surgery in the winter."

So, no one actually died, but the cushion of extra ventilators was all but gone, and at some hospitals was gone. The available rental stock was gone. Close enough to a crisis that we can actually accept it as a viable premise. Or is your belief that there's always enough of everything for everyone and no hard decisions ever have to be made?