Eight dead at South Florida nursing home amid heat
Air conditioning out at the facility
Police opened a criminal investigation Wednesday into the deaths of at least eight people at a South Florida nursing home that apparently was without air conditioning amid ongoing power outages from Hurricane Irma, according to local officials.
Three people died at the facility in Hollywood, Fla., and three others were pronounced dead after being taken to a hospital, said officials in the city between Miami and Fort Lauderdale. Two other deaths were reported later Wednesday afternoon.
Authorities evacuated more than 100 other people from the facility, The Rehabilitation Center at Hollywood Hills, including bringing some to nearby hospitals. Broward County Mayor Barbara Sharief said it was not immediately clear what caused the deaths at the nursing home.
In a statement Wednesday evening, authorities pointed blame at the facility’s air-conditioning.
“The initial investigation has determined that the facility’s air conditioning system was not fully functional,” Hollywood city officials said in a statement. “Portable [air-conditioning] units were being used in the facility, but the facility was excessively hot.”
“We’re conducting a criminal investigation into the deaths that occurred here,” Tomas Sanchez, the Hollywood police chief, said at a news briefing earlier Wednesday. “It’s a sad event.”
The rehabilitation center is located across the street from Memorial Regional Hospital, the flagship facility of the Memorial Healthcare System. An official from Memorial said that the health care network was helping with evacuating people from the rehabilitation center, which is not part of the Memorial system, and will take some to its other hospitals in the region.
The facility had a history of poor inspections and citations. The facility is rated “below average” on the Medicare website, which evaluates facilities based on performance in health inspections, staffing and quality measures.
Randy Katz, chairman of the department of emergency medicine at Memorial Regional Hospital, said fire and rescue received a call early Wednesday morning about a patient in distress at the rehabilitation facility.
The authorities quickly realized the facility had no air conditioning, Katz said, and transported the patient to the hospital. Katz said hospital staff went room to room in the facility. The most critically ill patients were wheeled across the street to the Memorial Regional emergency room.