A social crime: Eight elderly dead in Florida nursing home after days without air conditioning
By
Niles Niemuth
14 September 2017
The death of eight elderly residents of a nursing home in Hollywood, Florida, north of Miami, after suffering for several days in sweltering heat without air conditioning following Hurricane Irma, is not only a horrific tragedy, it is a social crime.
The heat index in southeast Florida overnight Tuesday into Wednesday was around 90 degrees Fahrenheit (32 Celsius), unbearable for many of the residents of the Rehabilitation Center at Hollywood Hills. One person who visited her mother at the home on Tuesday afternoon said that “it felt like 110 degrees.” Staff called police early Wednesday after residents woke up sick, and at least one person was found unresponsive.
Four residents died at the nursing home, and another four died after being sent to the hospital. At least 115 residents were evacuated by Hollywood Fire Rescue.
Repairman Dave Long told Local 10 News that he had been fighting with Florida Power and Light (FPL), the power company, since Monday to send someone to fix a fuse on the nursing home’s air conditioning unit that had popped during the storm. “There’s nothing we can do,” Long said. “We’ve been calling and calling. … It just doesn’t seem to be going anywhere and I can’t do anything until we get that fuse popped back in.”
Another woman quoted anonymously by Local 10 News said that she had called FPL on behalf of her mother who was in the facility repeatedly since Monday demanding to know when the air conditioning would be turned back on. “I kept calling,” she said. “And I said, ‘This is life-threatening.’”
The residents were left to suffer in the suffocating heat and humidity even as the…