 |
| Photo Credit: AP. |
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) — Prosecutors dropped manslaughter charges Thursday against three nurses who were present when 12 nursing home patients suffered fatal overheating five years ago after Hurricane Irma knocked out power to their facility’s air conditioning.
The Broward
County State Attorney’s Office dismissed charges against Althia Meggie, Sergo
Colin and Tamika Miller, but not Jorge Carballo, the home’s administrator. He
is still scheduled to go on trial next month, and prosecutors said Meggie, Colin
and Miller would testify against him.
The victims,
ranging in age from 57 to 99, had body temperatures of up to 108 degrees (42
degrees celsius), paramedics have reported. The staff has been criticized for
not taking the patients to a hospital across the street that had air
conditioning.
Carballo’s
attorney, James Cobb, did not immediately return a call Thursday seeking
comment. He sent a letter to Broward State Attorney Harold Pryor last week
saying, “I’ve never seen a more malicious, misguided prosecution in my life.”
He told
Pryor that lead prosecutor Chris Killoran has admitted to him that Carballo
will be acquitted. He said Pryor and Killoran have “no good faith reasonable
belief that you can obtain a conviction of Mr. Carballo.”
Pryor, in a
Thursday letter, responded, “I am aware of the challenges ahead; however, we do
believe we have a good faith basis to proceed against your client.”
The deaths
began at the Rehabilitation Center of Hollywood Hills three days after Irma
knocked out a transformer that powered the cooling system at the 150-bed,
two-story facility in suburban Fort Lauderdale. Otherwise, the facility never
lost power.
A state
report said that before the storm hit on Sept. 10, 2017, Carballo and his staff
made appropriate preparations. They purchased extra food and water and seven
days’ fuel for the generator.
Administrators
also participated in statewide conference calls with regulators, including one
where then-Gov. Rick Scott said nursing homes should call his cellphone for
help.
After the
air conditioner was knocked out, Carballo and his facility manager contacted
Florida Power & Light. When that didn’t work, they tried calling Scott’s
cellphone and county and city officials. No help came.
Temperatures
that week were in the upper 80s (about 31 degrees Celsius). On Sept. 12, two
days after the storm, serious problems began to arise.
Employees
tried to use portable air conditioners to keep the patients cool, but they were
not properly installed. The units on the first floor were vented into the
ceiling, meaning they were displacing heat into the second floor. That’s where
11 of the 12 victims lived.
In an
internet chatroom managers used to communicate, the director of housekeeping
wrote, “the patients don’t look good.” The report says Carballo never responded
but did order the installation of large fans.
In the early
afternoon, Hollywood paramedics made the first of several visits over the next
16 hours: a 93-year-old man had breathing problems. A paramedic asked about the
high temperatures — staff said they were getting the air conditioner repaired.
Paramedics took the man to the hospital across the street, where doctors
measured his temperature at 106 degrees (41.1 Celsius). He died five days
later.
Carballo
told investigators that when he left at 11 p.m. the temperature inside the home
was safe. The report found that “not credible.”
At 3 a.m. on
Sept. 13, paramedics returned to treat an elderly woman in cardiac arrest, with
one telling investigators the home’s temperature was “ungodly hot.” The woman’s
temperature was 107 (41.7 Celsius) and so was another person’s. The paramedics
were called into a room where Colin, the lead nurse, was performing CPR on a
dead man.
Paramedics
told investigators the man had rigor mortis, meaning he had been dead for
hours, undercutting the staff’s contention they monitored patients closely. The
report says security video shows no one visited the man for seven hours.
Paramedics
said Colin tried to stop them from checking other patients, saying everything
was OK. Lt. Amy Parrinello said she replied, “you told me that before and now
we have multiple deceased patients so with all due respect, I don’t trust your
judgment.”
At 6 a.m.,
fire Capt. Andrew Holtfreter arrived and was summoned to another dead body. A
paramedic began treating a patient whose temperature was so high it couldn’t be
measured -- the department’s thermometers max out at 108 degrees (42.2
Celsius).
Alarmed by
the patients arriving at its emergency room, Memorial Hospital staff went
across the street. One nurse said the home felt like “the blast of heat” inside
a car that’s been sitting in the sun all day.
The fire
department ordered the home evacuated.
Soon, Hollywood
homicide detectives arrived -- about the time FPL came to fix the air
conditioner.
The home never
reopened.