Erica Crosby received a chilling call Saturday.
It came from the rehab facility where her grandmother, Maureen Perry, was living while being temporarily bedridden.
The 86-year-old woman was missing.
Periodically, her grandmother was driven by ambulance to the Fresenius Medical Center Dialysis Clinic on Merrimack Street in Methuen, Mass., about 30 miles north of Boston, for dialysis treatments. Perry had a scheduled treatment that day, and the ambulance took her to the clinic as it always did.
But now, there was a problem. It didn’t bring her back.
A representative from the rehab facility told Erica that her grandmother had not returned, according to WBZ.
The clinic had closed three hours earlier.
Erica and her mother, Pam, hopped in her car and headed straight for Fresenius.
She later learned that the ambulance had arrived to pick up Perry and return her to the rehab facility, but its driver found Fresenius dark and locked.
That’s how Erica also found it.
She leapt out of the car and ran over to one of the clinic’s windows, squinting to see in inside. From there, she could see – but not reach – her grandmother.
Hours earlier, the center was cold enough for Perry to wear a sweater. By the time Erica reached it, she looked freezing, sitting in a chair, completely alone in the darkness – abandoned and literally forgotten.
It must have been crushingly lonely.
“We pulled up to this facility. I get out of the car and she’s in there,” Crosby told WFXT. “The lights are completely off, the building’s locked up, and I’m banging on the window, ‘Are you OK? Can you hear me?’ And she’s shrugging her shoulders.”
Erica was shocked.
“What went through my head is ‘how does this happen?'” Erica, who works as a nurse, told WHDH. “This is patient abandonment.”
She tried the doors, but they were locked and no one but her immobile grandmother was inside the building. That’s when Erica said she called 911 and spoke words she never expected to recite, she told WBZ.
“I can’t believe I’m about to report this, but my grandmother is locked inside a dialysis center,” she said.
With the help of the local fire department, eventually, they managed to get into the dialysis center.
“She looked at my mom and I and she said, ‘I knew you guys would find me, I love you.’ I cried. It’s just horrible,” Erica told NECN.
Ultimately, Perry wasn’t physically injured from the ordeal, just thirsty and cold.
“She’s shaken, but got her all cleaned up, put her in bed,” Pam told WBZ.
But the ordeal left a mental toll.
“She’s really, really shaken up still,” Crosby told WFXT. “We saw her this morning, and she was just beside herself still, can’t wrap her head around what unfolded.”
The family’s emotions also remain high.
“At first, I was enraged, then concerned, and then disgusted,” Erica told WBZ. “I couldn’t believe it.”
Her husband said he feels the same way.
“Utter disgust. Just utter disgust and enragement,” Erica’s husband, Jeff, told WHDH.
In a statement obtained by the station, Fresenius said that its “patients’ care and safety” are its “top priorities” and that it is “looking into the matter.” Here’s the statement in full:
“This past Saturday, a staff member at our Methuen dialysis facility closed the clinic following the completion of our second shift treatments. He did not see any patients in the treatment room and mistakenly believed that all of our patients had left the facility.
“Unfortunately, one of our patients remained in her dialysis chair at the time. She was later safely returned to her residence.
“We deeply regret what occurred and have spoken with the patient’s family. Our patients’ care and safety are our top priorities and we have initiated additional processes and safeguards to ensure that an incident such as this does not happen again. We apologize to the patient, her family and the entire community.”
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The statement isn’t enough for everyone.
“If their top priority is their patients, their safety, all this other stuff, then why did it happen?” Jeff asked on a WHDH broadcast.
Police said the matter is not criminal, according to WFXT. Meanwhile, the Massachusetts Department of Public Health told WHDH it is “conducting a thorough investigation into the situation.”
“Someone needs to be held accountable for this,” Erica told WBZ. “This is absolutely not okay.”
It’s not the first time an incident like this has occurred.
Last October, a 71-year-old woman named Patricia Terry was forgotten at the DaVita Renal Center in Joliet, Ill., WGN reported. The situations are similar – Terry was also brought to the dialysis center from her nursing home via ambulance.
In both cases, staff members closed the dialysis centers, leaving the women there. Terry wasn’t found for at least five hours, according to WGN.
(c) 2016, The Washington Post · Travis M. Andrews
86yo grandmother left alone for hours in #Methuen clinic after it closed. Family demands answers on @fox25news @ 10 pic.twitter.com/mJ42lBP71l
— Christine McCarthy (@ChristineMFox25) August 15, 2016
