After Milwaukee Journal Sentinel investigation, hospital parking garages have improved lighting levels.
If you’re noticing that Milwaukee-area hospital parking garages appear better lit of late, you’re not imagining it.
Light levels are significantly better than they were nearly two years ago, according to a Florida-based security consultant hired by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. The news organization first hired the consultant in May 2019 as part of an investigation into safety and security at hospital parking areas following a beating homicide of a nurse practitioner that took place in two of Froedtert Hospital’s garages.
The Journal Sentinel’s investigation revealed how hospitals across the country fail to adequately protect employees and visitors from violence in parking garages, leaving cameras unmonitored, garages unstaffed and lighting at unsafe levels. Locally, the investigation exposed inadequate lighting — in one case 30 times lower than industry standards — and other security lapses at five Milwaukee-area hospitals: Ascension Columbia St. Mary’s, Ascension St. Joseph, Aurora Sinai, Aurora St. Luke’s and Froedtert.
At Parking Garage A at Ascension Columbia St. Mary’s, where a woman was stabbed multiple times in 2018, minimum lighting levels jumped from 3 footcandles in some spots in 2019 to 8 foot-candles last month, according to Randy Atlas, the consultant who spot-checked the garages again in March.
A foot-candle is the amount of light equivalent to what a candle would illuminate in a 1-square-foot area. The lighting level inside most big-box stores, for example, measures about 30 foot-candles. Movie theaters register about 0.5 to 1.
Lighting is universally considered among the most important security features of parking garages. Yet states and municipalities interpret guidelines set by the International Building Code differently. Some require enclosed parking garages, such as the one at Froedtert where the nurse practitioner was slain, to have a minimum of 10 foot-candles of lighting — the same as all occupied interior spaces.
The International Association for Healthcare Security & Safety, with more than 2,000 members worldwide, recommends parking garages of all types to have at least 6 foot-candles of light.
Lighting levels at Aurora Sinai improved from a minimum of 1.3 foot-candles in 2019 to 8 foot-candles when the consultant reassessed in March. And at Froedtert Garage 1, where the nurse practitioner’s body was later found frozen to the ground, the lowest level measured by the consultant in March was 4 foot-candles compared to 1 foot-candle in 2019.
Light meter readings at Ascension St. Joseph’s garage jumped from 1.5 to 3 foot-candles and minimums went from 0.4 to 4 foot-candles at Aurora St. Luke’s.
“It’s definitely looking better,” said Atlas. “There’s still more to improve, but the lighting is better.”
Administrators for the hospitals declined to disclose details about any improvements made to lighting or other security measures at any of the garages.