Records shed light on suicide

The Agency for Health Care Administration did not respond to a request for more details related to its investigation of the May 16 suicide.

Orlando Police Department records and witness interviews identified Richard Stonge, 43, as the patient who broke open his eighthstory window that night with a metal rolling bed tray before taking his own life.

Off-duty staff members who were at ground level told OPD Detective Barbara Sharp they saw Stonge prior to him jumping and tried to talk him out of it. One staffer got security as the group tried to determine which floor Stonge was on. None of them saw anyone in the room with him.

After Stonge jumped, staff attempted to save him before he was rushed to the trauma bay, treated, and ultimately pronounced dead, the records show.

Police records did not include interviews with any of the nurses responsible for the patient.

Sharp wrote that Joshua Montemayor, Orlando Health’s senior director of risk management and claims prevention, told her Stonge had last been visited by a nurse at 10:03 p.m., 49 minutes before police received the 911 call. The nurse had attempted to give

Stonge medications, but he refused them, Montemayor said.

Montemayor told Sharp a nurse who was working on the eighth floor that night feared giving an interview because she had overheard Sharp explaining over the phone that all unnatural deaths are investigated as homicides, which is standard protocol.

“Joshua told me the nurse feared I would arrest and handcuff her during the interview. I told Joshua that it was absurd that I just needed to ask her general questions about the incident,” Sharp wrote.

At Montemayor’s request, Sharp agreed to allow nurses she interviewed to have someone present for emotional support. Montemayor then asked if the nurses involved could provide written statements instead of doing an in-person interview, which Sharp said was not acceptable, her report shows.

Sharp wrote she didn’t hear back from him for weeks until she received a voicemail from him asking if the investigation was over and for a copy of her report.

“I was under the impression he would call me back to let me know how we would be moving forward with the interviews,” Sharp wrote.

In response to questions about the night of Stonge’s death, including why Orlando Health’s risk management director was communicating on behalf of the nurses and why he didn’t facilitate interviews, Lewis, the Orlando Health spokesperson, provided a statement saying the hospital system has expressed its condolences to Stonge’s family and provided grief counseling to impacted team members.

“Orlando Health nurses and other clinicians who witnessed the tragic incident immediately responded to provide medical assistance to the patient, who, unfortunately, could not be saved,” Lewis wrote. “We commend our team members for their dedication to and care of our patients.”