{"id":3162,"date":"2017-09-23T10:48:12","date_gmt":"2017-09-23T17:48:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.tariolaw.com\/?p=2876"},"modified":"2022-11-24T21:48:22","modified_gmt":"2022-11-25T05:48:22","slug":"florida-nursing-home-affected-by-hurricane-irma-sued-after-death-of-8-residents","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tariolaw.com\/florida-nursing-home-affected-by-hurricane-irma-sued-after-death-of-8-residents\/","title":{"rendered":"Florida Nursing Home Affected by Hurricane Irma Sued after Death of 8 Residents"},"content":{"rendered":"

The legal guardian of one of the residents of a Florida nursing home affected by Hurricane Irma last week filed a personal injury claim against the residence<\/a> on Friday, September 15. The 94-year old woman claims that the Rehabilitation Center at Hollywood Hills staff\u2019s \u201cnegligence and reckless indifference\u201d toward their patients who suffered after the facility’s electrical system for its air conditioning units failed.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Eight residents died in the days following the lack of air conditioning and rising temperatures inside the rehabilitation center. Many other patients suffered from heat-related illnesses including respiratory distress and dehydration with some patients experiencing body temperatures up to 106 degrees.<\/a> A total of 119 patients from the nursing home were admitted to nearby Memorial Regional Hospital; 39 patients remained admitted to the hospital as of September 14, 2017.<\/p>\n

Nursing home complaint<\/h3>\n

The complaint states that the plaintiff, Rosa Cabrera, is a double amputee “without the ability to walk or live independently.\u201d As a result of the malfunctioning air conditioning system, Cabrera alleges that she suffered heat-related injuries severe enough that she required hospitalization. Rosa states that the staff assured her that she \u201c\u2026would be safe and cared for\u201d at the nursing home but that she was not told that the Rehabilitation Center did not have a generator to power the air conditioning system should the facility lose power.<\/p>\n

The complaint goes on to say that a reasonable nursing home would have known and prepared for the probability of a power outage when warnings of the impending storm were released on September 7, 2017. According the claim, the center neglected to understand or prepare for the danger of the hurricane by failing to install a generator to backup the air conditioning system which then led to unsafe temperatures. Instead, the complaint alleges, the Rehabilitation Center assured patients and loved ones that they had everything they needed to care for the more than 150 residents and made no effort to relocate the residents or to get a proper cooling system for the residence.<\/p>\n

In response, the Rehabilitation Center\u2019s public relations firm released a timeline for the nursing home stating that the center’s employees called emergency hotlines, the local power utility and Governor Rick Scott\u2019s cell phone repeatedly in the days after the air conditioning system failed on September 10. Scott\u2019s communication director confirmed that Scott had received the messages and forwarded them to the Agency for Health Care Administration and the Florida Department of Health, and that the messages were \u201cquickly returned.\u201d<\/p>\n

A statement released by the Florida Department of Health in regard to the incident said, \u201cIt is 100 percent the responsibility of health care professionals to preserve life by acting in the best interest of the health and well-being of their patients. Let\u2019s be clear — this facility is located across the street from one of Florida\u2019s largest hospitals, which never lost power and had fully operating facilities. The tragic and senseless loss at Hollywood Hills Rehabilitation Center is the subject of a criminal homicide investigation by law enforcement.\u201d<\/p>\n

If your loved one has been injured as a result of abuse or neglect, you have enough to deal with. Let an experienced nursing home abuse attorney<\/a>\u00a0help you fight for justice. It is not uncommon to receive a settlement from the insurance company that is five to ten times larger with the help of a good lawyer. Call the caring elder abuse attorneys at Tario & Associates, P.S.<\/a> in Bellingham, WA today for a FREE consultation! We have been representing residents of Whatcom County, Skagit County, Island County and Snohomish County since 1979. You will pay nothing up front and no attorney fees at all unless we recover damages for you!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The legal guardian of one of the residents of a Florida nursing home affected by Hurricane Irma last week filed a personal injury claim against the residence on Friday, September 15. The 94-year old woman claims that the Rehabilitation Center at Hollywood Hills staff\u2019s \u201cnegligence and reckless indifference\u201d toward their patients who suffered after the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":2088,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[692,33,88],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tariolaw.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3162"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tariolaw.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tariolaw.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tariolaw.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tariolaw.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3162"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.tariolaw.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3162\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5215,"href":"https:\/\/www.tariolaw.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3162\/revisions\/5215"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tariolaw.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2088"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tariolaw.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3162"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tariolaw.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3162"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tariolaw.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3162"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}