Hospital video shows no one helped dying woman
A disturbing video released by the New York Daily News today shows a female patient in the psychiatric ward of King County Hospital as she keels over onto the floor, and expires while others in the room -- including a hospital security guard -- do nothing to help.
From the report:
"Thank God for the videotape because no one would have believed this could have happened," said Donna Lieberman, executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union.
"There's a clear possibility of criminal wrongdoing with regard to recordkeeping, and that has to be investigated."
...
Green, 49, taken to the unit for "agitation," keels over out of her chair at 5:32a.m., according to the time stamp on the video. She had been sitting about 3feet from an observation window. Two other patients were in the room.
Green is lying facedown on the floor, her legs splayed, when a security guard strolls by at 5:53 a.m., looks at her for about 20 seconds and then walks away.
She is writhing on the floor, thrashing her legs, about 6 a.m., when her medical chart contends she was "awake, up and about, went to the bathroom."
Green rolls on her back at 6:04a.m. She stops moving at 6:08 a.m., but two minutes later a security guard pushed his chair into camera view.
He never gets out of the chair, but looks at Green and scoots away. A female patient who was in and out of the room finally brings a clinic staffer to check the woman and a crash cart is summoned.
The medical chart claims she was "sitting quietly in [the] waiting room" at 6:20 a.m., although she was already dead. The cause of death is still under investigation.
The full report is available online here.
This video is from New York Daily News, broadcast July 1, 2008.
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