Twelve patients at a Florida nursing home died after Hurricane Irma Three employees of the facility will now face charges connected to those patients' deaths.
The names of the employees from the Rehabilitation Center at Hollywood Hills and the charges that will be filed were not released Monday, but the attorney representing the three employees said he expects them to be charged with manslaughter, The Associated Press reported.
Hurricane Irma knocked out power at the facility when it swept through the region in September 2017. The patients were left in sweltering heat and died days after the storm had passed, the AP reported.
Investigators said the patients could have been moved across the street to a hospital that was fully up and running, the AP reported.
The nursing home lost its operating license then eventually closed.
Two nurses and the home's former administrator, Jorge Carballo, turned themselves in Monday. Another nurse could face charges, but attorneys of the other three people did not know if she had, the AP reported.
Nursing home administrators are putting the blame on the governor at the time, Gov. Rick Scott who they were told they could call directly for help. They said they did but Scott did not return their call, the AP reported.
Scott, who is now a U.S. senator, said administrators should have called 911, the AP reported.
The attorneys also said that administrators called Florida Power & Light and were told workers were supposed to be at the facility within six hours after a patent became ill.
But officials with the power company said that the nursing home should have called 911 in a life-threatening situation.
Paramedics who responded to help the dying patients said that one woman had a body temperature of 107.5 degrees, the highest she had seen until another patient had a temperature so high her equipment couldn't measure it, the AP reported.
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