FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. – The trial for a former administrator at a Hollywood nursing home resumed on Tuesday inside a Fort Lauderdale courtroom.
Twelve patients died after the air conditioning at the Rehabilitation Center at Hollywood Hills went out following Hurricane Irma.
Testifying Tuesday was a doctor who said Memorial Regional Hospital would’ve taken the patients from the nursing home if there was an acute need, something the defense doesn’t believe there was in the days prior to an ordered evacuation.
Emergency medicine physician Dr. Randy Katz described the moments he first walked into the Hollywood Hills nursing home the day police ordered an evacuation of the facility.
“Chaos,” Katz said.
The evacuation came after the center lost power to its chiller, disabling the air conditioning in the aftermath of Hurricane Irma. Ultimately, 12 people lost their lives after state prosecutors said they were exposed to the heat for two days.
“I just saw an abundance of people being overwhelmed,” Katz said, adding that he had treated one of the victim’s the day prior with a temperature of 104.
At the center of the trial is administrator Jorge Carballo, who has been criticized for not moving his residents to Memorial Regional Hospital, where there was running air conditioning.
Katz confirmed that Memorial Regional would have taken patients from another facility, but the defense argued in the days leading up to the evacuation, Carballo made multiple attempts to cool the building with fans and spot coolers, and the deaths may have been the result of prior illnesses the patients had.
“If there was no acute need and they wanted to put the patients in our facility to stay there without any concern for their safety, I would say it is probably unlikely we would take them,” Katz said.
The state will have to prove there was gross negligence by Carballo in order to convict him on nine counts of aggravated manslaughter.