The family of two residents who, along with 12 others, died when their Florida nursing home went without air-conditioning for days following a power outage caused by Hurricane Irma has now accused staff and owners of ‘murder.’
In an emotional interview Pedro Franco, 55, who lost both his mother and father in what has become a national scandal of horrifying magnitude said: ‘In my dictionary what happened there is murder. You don’t necessarily have to pull a gun and shoot somebody.’
Pedro and his sister, Margarita Navarro, 54, spoke exclusively to DailyMailTV just days after burying their mother Cecilia.
Cecilia Franco, 90, was the fourteenth victim of the Hollywood Hills Rehabilitation Center when she died on October 9. Her husband, Miguel, died less than a month earlier on September 13 aged 93. The couple had been married for almost 62 years.
Their family are among several bringing wrongful death suits alleging that staff ‘negligence and reckless indifference’ resulted in their relatives’ deaths when Irma blew through Florida taking out power lines and leaving the home with inadequate generators, failing air conditioning and faulty ‘spot coolers’ that turned the home into an unbearable hot box.
Cecilia and Miguel Franco were two of the 14 residents at Hollywood Hills Rehabilitation Center who died after Hurricane Irma hit Florida in September. The nursing home had its air conditioning knocked out, resulting in unbearable 104 degrees inside the facility
Cecilia, 90, (left) was named as the fourteenth victim of the nursing home when she died on October 9. Her husband, Miguel (right), died less than a month earlier on September 13 aged 93. The couple had been married for almost 62 years
Now their children Pedro Franco and Margarita Navarro have spoken out against the home and joined a growing list of wrongful death suits against the center. Pedro said: ‘In my dictionary what happened there is murder. You don’t necessarily have to pull a gun and shoot somebody’
Temperatures in the home rose to a blistering 109 degrees – federal law requires nursing homes to stay between 71 and 81 degrees. And the home was cited for violating generator regulations in 2014 and 2016.
Now Pedro and Margarita have told of their devastation and their torment at how their parents must have suffered.
They have shared their mother’s heartbreaking final words, expressed their desire for justice and shared their anguish over how close they came to removing Miguel and Cecilia from the facility ahead of the storm.
Pedro revealed: ‘Margarita went there a few days before the hurricane and they told her everything was fine, everything was going to be taken care of.
‘She actually went there with the purpose of taking my dad home and maybe putting my mom in the hospital for a few days until the hurricane had passed but they said, “Oh no, you don’t have to worry. As a matter of fact you guys can come over and use us as a shelter.” Look at what happened.’
Currently, the home that once housed 152 residents and boasted of world-class care is a crime scene. Though owner Dr Jack Michel is fighting its closure, the home stands empty, all 245 members of staff have been laid off and it has been suspended from the Medicaid program.
Last week police announced they had completed witness interviews and released audio of the 911 calls placed by staff between Monday, September 11 and Wednesday, September 13 when authorities finally intervened to evacuate the facility. Eight patients died on that day alone, including Miguel.
At one point a worker can be heard saying, ‘Oh my God, this is crazy,’ during the fourth distress call on the morning of September 13th. But at no point do any workers give any sense of the wide-reaching crisis playing out.
Temperatures at the nursing home rose to a blistering 109 degrees – federal law requires nursing homes to stay between 71 and 81 degrees. And the home was cited for violating generator regulations in 2014 and 2016
Images of patients wheeled into corridors, stripped almost naked and put close to fans while some patients’ temperatures spiked to as high as 110 degrees have since emerged
Currently the home that once housed 152 residents and boasted of world-class care is a crime scene. Though owner Dr Jack Michel is fighting its closure, the home stands empty, all 245 members of staff have been laid off and it has been suspended from the Medicaid program
Images of patients wheeled into corridors, stripped almost naked and put close to fans while some patients’ temperatures spiked to as high as 110 degrees have since emerged to tell the story those calls did not.
Ultimately a call placed by Broward County Emergency Operations Center led to the home’s evacuation. The caller stated that they had received a call from Larkin Community Hospital, just yards from the home asking for assistance.
He had little information but said: ‘The call that came in from them was a little daunting and we got a call from them yesterday that we believe we re-routed and it looks like they need more assistance.’
Attorney Albert Levin, who along with Curtis Miner, is co-counsel for Miguel and Cecilia’s family said: ‘The way those calls were made, the sense was there was no blanket crisis.’
For Pedro and Margarita, it simply defies belief that nobody made a call raising the alarm and nobody ordered the residents to be evacuated but instead left them to suffer, suffocate, dehydrate and, in 14 cases to date, die.
Pedro said: ‘You don’t have to be a nurse, you don’t have to be somebody that has received training to be able to see what’s going on and they didn’t do a simple thing – pick up the phone and say, “It’s enough. The heat is tremendous. It’s impossible.”
Every bit as shocking to them is the fact that nobody from the home contacted them to let them know what was going on – even after their father had died.
Margarita explained: ‘After the hurricane I made a couple of phone calls to the facility. I wanted to speak to a nurse on the second floor, which is where they were, but nobody picked up. I was holding maybe 15 minutes before I hung up. That was Saturday.’
The following day her sister-in-law called. Margarita said: ‘They told her that everything was fine. But now we know they didn’t have power.’
Miguel had only been in the home for seven months. Cecilia, who suffered from Alzheimer’s, had been a resident for eight years but Miguel was in robust good health until a series of falls meant that he needed 24-hour care
Miguel and Cecilia are buried side-by-side in a plot in the Dade Memorial Park (pictured). They had five children, nine grandchildren and one great-grandchild
The couple would have celebrated their 62nd wedding anniversary this December, forty years after coming to America from Colombia in hopes of a better life for themselves and their family
Two days later, on Wednesday, September 13, the news broke that residents of the home were dying.
‘Nobody bothered to call us,’ Pedro said. Instead Margarita heard it on the radio and rushed to the facility where she was met by a terrifyingly chaotic scene.
Police had blocked the roads so she parked in the lot of a nearby school and ran to where other concerned families were trying to get information from nurses and officers about where, and how, their loved ones were.
Families were directed to the Hollywood Memorial Regional Hospital – directly opposite the nursing home. There they gathered in a conference room and filled out paperwork detailing their relatives’ names and room numbers.
Then they waited as the names were read out along with the hospital to which they had been taken.
Cecilia was in the Regional Hospital. But Miguel’s name was not called.
Instead, several hours later a detective and a hospital official called the family members who had by then made their way to the hospital into another room.
Margarita said: ‘They gave us the bad news that my dad had passed away.’
They were not given a chance to see him before he was taken for autopsy. The next time they saw him was at the viewing before his funeral. The medical examiner has yet to release the cause of death for any of the victims.
Miguel had only been in the home for seven months. Cecilia, who suffered from Alzheimer’s, had been a resident for eight years but Miguel was in robust good health until a series of falls meant that he needed 24-hour care.
Pedro and Margarita heard news of the disaster at the nursing home from media outlets. ‘Nobody bothered to call us,’ Pedro said. Instead Margarita heard it on the radio and rushed to the facility where she was met by a terrifyingly chaotic scene
The family was not given a chance to see Miguel before he was taken for autopsy. The next time they saw him was at the viewing before his funeral. The medical examiner has yet to release the cause of death for any of the victims
Cecilia was treated in hospital for ten days but she developed pneumonia and her condition became beyond anything the staff could help. They recommended to her family that she be moved into hospice care. Pictured: Photo montage of the family
According to Pedro and Margarita he was happy to be with his wife. Pedro said: ‘Sixty-two years of marriage so you know he used to cry and beg us to take him to see her. But we all work so every time we had the opportunity, we’d take him.
‘So we know he was very happy there because my mom was next to him.
‘The first thing he would do is wake up next to her and say, “Hello, good morning, I love you.”‘
And as they reeled from the news of his death they were forced to confront the dire condition in which Cecilia – who, like her husband, had been in good health prior to the hurricane – had been admitted to hospital.
Margarita said: ‘She was not in a good condition, with fever, high temperature, high blood pressure and she started developing respiratory problems.
‘She had an infection of her blood. She had a urinary infection also, so she was complicated.’
Cecilia was treated in the hospital for 10 days but she developed pneumonia and her condition became beyond anything the staff could help. They recommended to her family that she be moved into hospice care.
Today the family is haunted by the thought of what their mother witnessed and was unable to communicate due to her advanced Alzheimer’s.
Margarita explained: ‘We don’t know exactly [but] maybe she heard my father saying something because she tried to talk to us when she was in the hospital. She never did before.
‘But she tried to talk to us, tell us something…but she couldn’t.’
But they are sure she was aware that her beloved husband had died. Pedro said: ‘When she was transferred to the hospice my brother and his wife and their kids traveled with her.
They heard her saying, “He’s gone,” three times and then she mentioned his name and that was the last thing she said.
Pedro added: ‘Maybe in those little moments that she had clear in her mind she might have remembered that she heard something…After that we didn’t hear her say anything, just moaning.’
Shocking footage emerged of an elderly woman slumped naked over a hospital bed (pictured) at the center. She was seen trying to keep herself cool in the sweltering conditions
The inside of the Rehabilitation Center Hollywood Hills is in a state of disrepair after it was shut down due to being the subject of a criminal investigation after Hurricane Irma
Miguel and Cecilia are buried side-by-side in a plot in the Dade Memorial Park. They had five children, nine grandchildren and one great-grandchild.
They would have celebrated their 62nd wedding anniversary this December, forty years after coming to America from their native Colombia in hopes of a better life for themselves and their family.
To Pedro, Margarita and their siblings, they were devoted parents. They recalled Miguel as ‘an angel,’ a man who worked two jobs, one as an aviation mechanic, the other for Dade County Parks and Recreations Department.
Margarita said: ‘They were a very happy couple. I never saw my dad fighting with my mom. My mom was the strong one. My dad, everything she said, he did.’
Pedro said: ‘I will always be grateful…for everything he did for us. He was an angel to all of us – to my mom and to all of us. I will always love him and have him in my heart.
‘He was like the perfect example of a loving father, husband, grandfather. He did everything that he could to have us all together and give us everything that he could. But he gave us the main thing, love and care. He did the same thing with my mom. He loved her so much for so many years.’
Florida Governor Rick Scott has announced new rules requiring that nursing homes and assisted living facilities have generators capable of maintaining comfortable temperatures for at least 96 hours in the event of a power outage.
The state’s top health regulator, Justin Senior, has accused the home of ‘gross medical and criminal recklessness.’
In a recent statement he said: ‘This facility failed its residents multiple times throughout this horrifying ordeal.’
Florida Governor Rick Scott has announced new rules requiring that nursing homes and assisted living facilities have generators capable of maintaining comfortable temperatures for at least 96 hours in the event of a power outage
But for Miguel and Cecilia Franco’s family the condemnation is too little too late and they want more far reaching legal changes – including giving nursing homes that lose power the same repair priority as hospitals – to ensure that not hing like this ever happens again
He continued: ‘It is unfathomable that a medical professional would not know to call 911 immediately in an emergency situation.
‘The family also entered late entries into medical records claiming safe temperatures for patients while those same patients were across the street dying in the emergency room with temperatures of over 108 degrees Fahrenheit.’
But for Miguel and Cecilia Franco’s family the condemnation is too little too late and they want more far reaching legal changes – including giving nursing homes that lose power the same repair priority as hospitals – to ensure that nothing like this ever happens again.
Nothing can bring back their parents or ease their grief. ‘It’s a pain inside,’ Margarita said, ‘And I can’t get it out.’
Pedro added: ‘I wish I could say the things that I’m feeling. But the one thing I can tell you is that we all want justice.
‘We want these people, whoever is responsible to pay for it, to go to jail, to lose their licenses, to never again let them take care of elderly people, sick people because they are responsible.
‘They never expressed such an emergency; they never expressed that these parents were in distress, suffocating…that’s how I see it [and] in a way, to me, this is murder.
‘My father didn’t have to die the way he died, or my mom. They didn’t die of natural causes. They died of negligence of all the people who were in charge that shift.
‘Everybody that works there in a way is responsible, because they didn’t report it.’