HORRIFYING

Florida Nursing Home Patients Had Highest Temperatures Paramedics Had Ever Seen: Affidavit

State prosecutors hit staff members of the hospital with manslaughter charges earlier this week.

Patients at a Florida nursing home where staff members are facing manslaughter charges over several heat-related deaths had temperatures as high as 109 degrees when paramedics arrived at the scene, according to an arrest affidavit obtained by the South Florida Sun-Sentinel. Twelve elderly patients died at the Rehabilitation Center at Hollywood Hills after going three days without air conditioning in the wake of Hurricane Irma in 2017. Paramedics responded to the scene after receiving a call that a woman was in cardiac arrest, and when they arrived, her temperature was 107.5 degrees, according to the affidavit. “None of the paramedics had ever seen a patient with a temperature that high,” the affidavit said. Other patients rescued were in various stages of respiratory distress, and two patients had recorded temperatures of 108.3 degrees and 109.9 degrees. State prosecutors charged the chief administrator and three nurses who worked at the nursing home the night before patients began to die with manslaughter Monday.