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The first major prosecution to come out of the disaster
Posted by Raven on September 14th, 2005
I hope this is only the beginning of what I think should be HELL to pay. The nursing home owners are always ultimately accountable, but what about the medical director, the Administrator and the Director Of Nursing, as well as the nurses.
BATON ROUGE, La. Sep 13, 2005 — The husband-and-wife owners of a nursing home near New Orleans were charged Tuesday with negligent homicide in the deaths of 34 people during the flooding unleashed by Hurricane Katrina.
The case represents the first major prosecution to come out of the disaster.
The owners of St. Rita’s Nursing Home in Chalmette “were asked if they wanted to move (the patients). They did not. They were warned repeatedly that this storm was coming,” Louisiana Attorney General Charles Foti said.
The feds might step in as well, if this place accepted federal funding (which most nursing homes do…)
In effect, their inaction resulted in the deaths of these patients,” Foti said.
Salvador A. Mangano and his wife, Mable, surrendered and were jailed on 34 counts of negligent homicide. Each count carries up to five years in prison.
The attorney general said he is also investigating the discovery of more than 40 corpses at flooded-out Memorial Medical Center, in New Orleans’ Uptown section.
The victims at St. Rita’s died Aug. 29, the day the hurricane hit, and on Sept. 6, at least 14 unrecognizable bodies were still inside the nursing home, the New York Times reported last week.
The inaction did indeed lead to these deaths. There is no other way to put it. It’s wrong. It’s a shame. It’s illegal to abandon the patients. Under any cirscumstances.
St. Bernard Parish Councilman Ricky Melerine said the water rose 3 feet in 15 minutes that morning and then even faster, the Times said.
Several men tried to rescue the nursing home’s residents by floating them out on mattresses, and others were able to walk to a school, the Times said. In all, the home had about 60 residents.
There were apparent efforts to fight the incoming water inside St. Rita’s. A table was nailed against a window and a couch was pushed up against a door, the Times said. There was also evidence that water had reached the roof.
The owners had an evacuation plan as required under state law and a contract with an ambulance service to evacuate the patients, but they did not call the company, Foti said.
They also turned down an offer from St. Bernard Parish officials who asked if the nursing home wanted help evacuating, he said. The home is about 10 miles southeast of New Orleans in an area of heavy devastation.
What possessed these folks to just walk away? They MUST have known they would be caught. Damn.
September 14th, 2005 at 10:24 am
How long before some paper says that Bush is just as responsible for these deaths as this couple? Oh, wait. I think that has been done.
I don’t know how someone can walk out of the place, wave goodbye, and lock the door for likely deaths for these invalids. I’d be craming these people in cars and trucks to get them out of there. It’s beyond my comprehension.