Blandly Watching Someone Die
I heard about this story yesterday, but didn’t listen to the 911 call until this morning.
March is only four days old, but this month’s “man’s inhumanity to man” award goes to Glenwood Gardens and the folks who work there. The senior living facility in Bakersfield, Calif., has a policy of calling 911 in emergencies and waiting with the afflicted until medical assistance arrives. But the lack of urgency — the seeming indifference of the personnel to the 87-year-old woman who collapsed in the dining room Feb. 26 — is stunning.
The Bakersfield Fire Department released the 911 call on Saturday is simply chilling. For seven minutes, the 911 operator tried to get someone, anyone, to administer CPR to Lorraine Bayless as she lay on the floor barely breathing.
Dispatcher: I understand if your boss is telling you you can’t do it. but if there’s anybody, as a human being, I don’t, you know. Is there anybody that’s willing to help this lady and not let her die?
Glenwood Gardens nurse: Not at this time.
Stunning and chilling are accurate descriptions. Go listen to the 911 call. The only person concerned about the dying woman is the 911 operator. Everyone else acts as if the 87 year old woman lying on the ground has a hangnail.
I’m not going to get into whether the woman would have lived if she’s received CPR. I’m not even going to dwell on Glenwood Gardens corporate death panels. What stuns me is the staff’s complete and utter lack of humanity and compassion. Have you listened to the 911 call yet? You really need to do that.
The Glenwood Gardens staff, one of which declares herself a nurse, is completely unmoved. There is simply no emotional reaction, no sense of urgency whatsoever. That’s what’s chilling. In fact, the only time a staff member showed emotion was when it came to herself:
Meanwhile, the nurse told someone on her end that Halvorson (911 operator) was “yelling at me and saying we have to have one of our residents perform CPR. I’m feeling stressed, and I’m not going to do that, make that call.”
She’s feeling stressed? Why? Because someone is dying in front of her? Nope. She’s upset because the 911 operator is “yelling” at her to help the dying woman. Why even call 911? Why not just skip the middleman and call the funeral home instead? Bet this stressed nurse really needed a cup of coffee after her ordeal.
I get that Glenwood Garden’s policy is sterile, stupid and heartless. Why do they even hire nurses if they won’t allow them to, you know, be a nurse? What I don’t get is the employees reaction, or should I say lack of reaction. They aren’t the least bit upset that their hands are tied. That’s what’s so shocking about this incident – the complete lack of compassion and humanity. As they spoke to the 911 operator I kept envisioning them rolling their eyes. That’s what shocked me.
As I listened to that 911 call I couldn’t sit still. Even though I knew how the incident ended (the woman died) I kept thinking someone would intervene. It just seemed so instinctive. I kept thinking… okay, these nurses aren’t going to help, but they’re going to start yelling for someone who can. They are going to do something. But they did nothing. They didn’t even seem to care, and that’s what’s chilling.
Tags: 9/11, Health Care
I’m taking a step back. A huge majority of Doctors would not want CPR administered on them in that situation.
There are a lot of extenuating circumstances here, but what shocked me was the lack of emotion and urgency on the part of the staff. I can’t imagine doing nothing if I was standing there watching someone struggle to breath.
There is a similar lack of emotion from the business owners when writing paychecks, so it comes from the top. Attendant at an old-age home is one of the crappiest and lowest paid jobs in America, so you get what you pay for. Usually there aren’t any actual nurses on duty, except maybe one somewhere in the building, especially on night shift.
These types of facilities should require residents to choose in advance what lifesaving measures they want done. The article says the victim did not have a do-not-resuscitate order. In that situation a medical facility will assume you want everything done. But this wasn’t a medical facility. So a mandatory choice on admission would clear up nicely what they would or wouldn’t do in an emergency.
When I first heard this, I assumed the resident had a do-not-resuscitate order. Now, I bet it’s a condition of their insurance that they not provide that care.
Im not defending, only offering a perspective…
After you see so many people die, it’s hard to react the way other people, who don’t regularly see people die, think you should react. I’m guessing people die every week at any given nursing home. Eventually, you run out of the ability to be moved by it. What if the woman DID have a DNR request? What if the staff knew this lady had been at death’s door for months or even years?
This case is pretty chilling, but how many deaths has that nurse witnessed? All we have is a 911 call, and knowledge of the state of our elder care facilities in the country. Her profession has her constantly around people near death and dying.
Pandora, you are right…. you ENVISIONED the nurse rolling her eyes, that doesn’t mean it happened, and you shouldn’t judge her as if it had.
It is ironic that the 911 dispatcher was treated to the same empty dispassionate answers that law enforcement usually gives when you ask them to do something they aren’t going to do. I almost expected the attendant to say “Not at this time, ma’am.”
I think you can find plenty of instances when people under law enforcement control were not given life-saving first aid, with similar lack of humanity. I know police have a large library of excuses for when that happens.
From the linked story:
“Bayless’ daughter told KGET that she was a nurse and was satisfied with her mother’s care at Glenwood Gardens, the station reported.”
This not a nursing home but was an independent living facility, where you are expected to be in pretty good health. When you start to get sicker you are no longer eligible for that kind of facility and you are moved to a facility with a higher level of care. But still, if you have 87 year old people in the house you need to have a plan.
I’m sure this happens more often than we know. It’s the 911 call that’s disturbing. The fact that the people on the phone couldn’t rouse themselves to even pretend they cared is the problem. The end result can be the same. It’s how we got there that’s disturbing.
Why should they PRETEND to care? They arent politicians who should expect everything they do to end up on the internet. I’m sure if she knew the 911 dispatch would end up being picked apart on the blogosphere, she may have put on the emotional act, but should she, or any other care provider, treat every dying old person as if it their own parent? what kind of emotional toll would that take? Maybe it would cause them to not bat an eye when the 100th person dies in front of them.
They are underpaid health care professionals who’s primary job is to make people’s final years somewhat livable. It’s not even like they are treating sick kids who could have their whole lives in front of them. I want to know why this woman wasnt living with her family… the people who REALLY should have been caring for her.
My impression was that the attendants had been very well trained in an inhumane policy to the point where they integrated it into their beliefs, and were not in a position to choose between their jobs and that woman. It is well known that in extreme situations, humanity can become a luxury, and choices are made that would otherwise be unthinkable. Maybe more details will come out to confirm or disprove this, but this incident may be a red flag that income inequality and low wages have become so extreme it affects our very humanity.
Maybe they could take emotional lessons from you?
I think the fact that the woman’s own daughter is ok with how this went down is very telling. Maybe rather than be upset at this nurse, who all we know about her is how we THINK she did her job in this one situation, we should think about the state of elder care, or disability care in this country. The very idea that we ship our parents and grandparents off to, slightly nicer looking, minimum security prisons is a problem. Thank goodness there are people out there willing to work in these facilities that most people cant even spend a few hours in visiting their own family.
A good healthy rise in the minimum wage would help too.
Im not sure what you meant by that. I bet it was sarcastic though.
We do not know the whole story here and all we have to go on is how this one recorded phone call made you feel.
I dont work in that industry because I know I wouldnt be able to handle it. But I do know folks who do and I bet everyone here does as well. I dont think every single death in a hospital or nursing home goes down like a scene from ER where everyone falls apart trying to save someone they have watched slowly die for months. Does it mean anything to you that the woman’s daughter, who is a nurse…. id say the best person to ask about the situation…. understood what happened?
Perhaps the nurse daughter could have advised her mother not to stay in a facility that has a policy not to do CPR.
Until you know what kind of “end of life directive” this person had, you are talking out your ass.
And BTW – while CPR is 90% effective on TV, it is only 5% effective on the elderly. So this wasn’t a choice between “saving” and “letting a person die.”
Of course it was sarcastic.
But I’m having trouble following your logic. You say: ” Does it mean anything to you that the woman’s daughter, who is a nurse…. id say the best person to ask about the situation…. understood what happened?”
Before you said: “I want to know why this woman wasnt living with her family… the people who REALLY should have been caring for her.”
Personally, the fact she was in assisted living isn’t the issue for me. When you reach the point in your life when aging/ailing parents become a reality it isn’t so simple.
Puck is correct. Raising minimum wage would help, as would having people not have to chose between their job and helping someone during an emergency.
I worked in this field for years for a while primarily in an independent living area. It’s true they aren’t paying for any sort of medical care. If you want that you need to go to an assisted living or healthcare facility. I think it’s more akin to an apartment building than a “nursing home” in that the nurse there (who was probably helping hand out the plates, if this was the dining room, maybe even on loan from another part of the facility)was probably for insurance reasons not allowed to do anything until help arrived. They wil fire you really fast for breaking protocol. Also, sadly you get a little jaded about people dying when it happens on a roughly monthly basis.
THAT BEING SAID when a resident collasped in front of me I reflexively ran and caught him, without thinking. I cared about all of my residents. Thank goodness he was conscious until help arrived.
Local media confirms she had no DNR on file.
There is a police investigation, so I guess more facts will come out. But it looks like the employees had their jobs at stake. Though it would be a nice feelgood story if they broke policy and lost their jobs – feelgood for us that is, not for them.
The only good that comes of it is that it is a teachable moment about long term care facilities.
right. Im offering different perspectives. Im not judging the situation based on a phone call…. or at all… Im not calling out a private citizen I know nothing about other than a few sentences they said in a conversation they shouldnt even have expected would end up in the public square.
I feel she SHOULD have been with her family… that is certanly the decision I hope i am able to make when it comes to the care of my own parents….. but her daughter is a nurse. Maybe that means the hours she works makes it impractical. Perhaps this was the best situation the family could manage.
I. Dont. Know.
And neither do you. THAT’S my point.
“she SHOULD have been with her family…”
Two words: sandwich generation
I know if I had older relatives in my home needing more care with each passing year, either me, my wife, or both wouldn’t be able to hold down a job, and eventually we wouldn’t have a home for any of us. Not very compassionate and not very responsible.
That is why it is as hard to hear our President offering up Social Security and medical cuts as it is to hear that 911 call.
There’s medical help that you pay for by moving into an assisted living facility or nursing home, and then there’s a simple, human duty to help in an emergency to the best of your training and ability. There is an expectation that everyone will help each other. It’s basic humanity.
Ben,
one of our regrets with the care of my grandparents (because we were lucky enough they could afford it) was that we left them at home as long as we did. Both of my grandmothers absolutely blossomed when exposed to the social benefits of a facility as opposed to sitting alone in a house all day. My one grandmother was the Queen Bee of her place.
but each family is different. like you said, we don’t know their situtaion.
Wherever that nurse graduated should be decertified. It should not be POSSIBLE to acquire a nursing degree and prioritize your policy over a patient, and my grandmother, who helped establish the rules for nursing education in this state, would say so.
I don’t need to ask the daughter whether she was happy with the care. I give rats ass NONE about that. I’ve worked in several of these facilities, and I tell you that as a 19 year old dishwasher I’d have been in the dining room on the phone with 911, doing anything they suggested.
This is not a society where we watch people die.
i’m mad at her, but i’m mad at the facility more. to me it sounds like she was afraid to get fired. they shouldn’t create (and enforce) a policy that makes their employees make those kids of choices. There should be some sort of exception to the policy for emergency circumstances.
Agreed, V. This policy had a person go against every ounce of human nature during an emergency. The fact she was a trained nurse makes this even more troubling since she had the skills. My bet is that this nursing home’s policy is about to change.
you’re right. it was wrong of me to make a call on how someone else handled a situation i know next to nothing about, based on how i think i may have handled it.
“as a 19 year old dishwasher I’d have been in the dining room on the phone with 911”
As well you should. At 19 you wouldn’t have rent or family depending on your next paycheck. And breaking procedure as a dishwasher has a lot lighter career consequences than breaking procedure as a nurse. And I’m not 100% convinced the woman on the phone was an actual nurse.
“This is not a society where we watch people die.”
Now who’s being naive, Kay?
Maybe congressional action is needed to prevent these facilities from banning emergency care, and to prevent insurance companies from requiring this in their policies or charging more for it.
@Ben “I want to know why this woman wasnt living with her family… the people who REALLY should have been caring for her.” – weird, your are usually the person I agree with on this blog but you are way off base. You must be lucky enough to never have had to deal with a stubborn, elderly parent. My dad lives alone and has for 4 years since my mom died. He is not healthy but he is not senile, not one bit. He eats frozen dinners and lunchmeat and cheese. And he is happy. As happy as a person can be who lost the love of their life, anyway. Over the last four years we (all of his kids) have offered him our houses, offered to move into his, offered to help him find assisted living, an apartment, or even a smaller house. He refuses it all. He said he would rather risk the risks that are there living alone than move out of the house where he lived for 50 years raising his family. That is his choice. He also said if it ever gets to the point where he can’t take care of himself, he would rather live in assisted living than with his kids because his grandchildren are too loud. seriously. You have no idea ‘why’ this lady was living where she was living so please don’t make assumptions like that.
“This is not a society where we watch people die.’
Where did you get that notion? Ever turn on your TV? Millions of us watch it every day.
@Ben, I think we were typing at the same time. I didn’t see your last comment. Would have saved me some time typing I guess. Thank you
By 19, puck, I’d already been homeless, so yes, losing my job would have mattered. But, if you’ve listened, the operator asked her to get someone else… and there was probably a dishwasher, or a resident, or, as she says, a ‘stranger from the street.’ to get involved in it. But why should that be necessary?
I grew up in a neighborhood with strong memories of Europe during the 2nd WW. I know several people who hid Jews, and some who escaped. Perhaps my standards for being human are old fashioned.
” I know several people who hid Jews, and some who escaped. Perhaps my standards for being human are old fashioned.”
There were also people who gave up their neighbors for a loaf of bread, or to keep their homes for their families. The problem was the unthinkable dilemma they were forced to deal with, not their underlying humanity.
Penmom, id urge you to re-read my following comments where I left open the idea that ive never had to make that decision and my statement was mearly now I felt… in that moment.. about how I may have handeled it. remember where i said
“but her daughter is a nurse. Maybe that means the hours she works makes it impractical. Perhaps this was the best situation the family could manage.” I never even said I though I was right.
damnit! penmom, we’re playing a game of misunderstanding tag
puck, are you suggesting that, facing an “unthinkable dilemma” means all choices are the same? Or that letting a lady die in front of you, in a dining hall, because it might cause you to lose your job (if that was her fear) is an “unthinkable dilemma”? Because I say, no.
Some things are right. Some things are wrong. Some choices are ethical, some are unethical. Some people demonstrate bravery, some demonstrate cowardice. Bravery is better than cowardice.
People who don’t get that scare me.
Maybe the 87year old woman was a jerk and that’s why no one wanted to risk their job and perform CPR which they may not even be certified to do.
I don’t think the choice is only between bravery and cowardice. Hiding Jews, for example, was punishable by death… and the death on your family… and probably friends and town. I am someone who thinks Hitler and the Nazis were totally enabled by a a populace who wasn’t questioning why their neighbors were vanishing. That said, not every Aryan German was to blame for the Holocaust…. and those who chose not to put their children’s lives at risk to hide stranger aren’t cowards. They aren’t brave… but there aren’t only 2 choices.
Its yet another situation where, unless you have been there, you cant know how you’ll react. It’s like the big brave gun owner. You can WANT to react a certain way all you wish… for many of us, these extreme situations will hopefully never occur. In the meantime, what good at all does it do to judge those who face them?
i am so psyched how fast we got to Godwin’s Law on this one.
What if she passed out at Arby’s, or Old Navy, or Super G? Would this even be news then?
!f she passed out at Arby’s, or Old Navy, or Super G and people called 911 and then refused to help/follow the operator’s instructions that would be news.
“Its yet another situation where, unless you have been there, you cant know how you’ll react. …blah, blah … gun owner…”
I have been there, three times. Both as a lifeguard, and a police officer. Unlike the fictitious “big brave gun owner”, there was no choice, at least in my mind. If you were trained to help, you helped. I’ll never forget any of them, and I was glad to have been in a position to help. Two of these were back in the day of old-school CPR, compressions and breathing. There were no air bags, face shields, nothing but a big sloppy lip lock on a stranger’s face:
– 79 year old male, heart attack (1974-Florida))
– 24 year old female, drug overdose (1979-Delaware)
– 5 year old female, drowning (1987-Delaware)
In the hope that more people will get the training, they have lowered the standards of CPR to make it less complex and intimidating to the average person, and rightly so. (I recall those Resusci-Annies that had the paper printouts of breaths and compressions. You had to have about 3 perfect minutes in order to pass the course.) I haven’t been trained in years, but I understand you only have to give compressions now. How could anyone not do that?
“What if she passed out at Arby’s, or Old Navy, or Super G? Would this even be news then?”
Ever notice how many public and private facilities have AED’s on the walls nowadays? Delaware bought truckloads of these with money from the great ‘tobacco settlement’. Virtually every law enforcement vehicle in Delaware had one in the trunk.
I blame the system. The indifference is a planned consequence of that system. Better to have a “death panel” based on ethics than one based on profit. Sadly, there are many people who consider profit to be the only form of ethics.
I know AEDs are everywhere, but is there a mandate to follow 911 life saving instructions? I don’t think so.
Also, the CPR changes are based on the best current evidence that circulating oxygen reserves in the blood results in better outcomes than stopping to “reload” blood with oxygen. At least until an advanced airway is in place and ACLS protocols kick in. Rremember it used to be A-B-C now it is C-A-B
http://www.sca-aware.org/sca-news/how-the-new-aha-guidelines-for-cpr-and-ecc-may-help-improve-survival-rates
There is no mandate. Even if you are CPR trained, good samaritan laws not only protect you if you accidently break someone’s ribs saving their life (if you do it right, you are going to crack a few), but they state that using your CPR training is your call. I keep thinking about the lady at the nursing home…. what if this wasnt the first, or even 10th time this has happened? Im very uncomofrtable with pointing her out at saying “boooooo”, because there is still so much that we dont know. What we do know, is this has got to be more common than we think, and it is clearly the fault of the industry.
Thanx for the link meatball, good information.
“… the CPR changes are based on the best current evidence that circulating oxygen reserves in the blood results in better outcomes than stopping to “reload” blood with oxygen.”
Thanks for the link. From the article:
“A community strategy of ‘hands-only CPR’ should increase bystander action and improve survival from cardiac arrest.”
As this standard is less complex than the trained rescuer standard, this says they are still trying to engage the average person.
I was an AHA and ARC instructor from the late 1970’s to the mid 1980’s. I got my first CPR cert in south Florida around 1973. I believe we were one of the first beach patrols in the area to get it. We had a heart attack victim on the beach, and administered mouth to mouth for about 15 minutes until the ambulance crew arrived It started. They started this strange new procedure that previously was only done in emergency rooms called CPR. A week later we were being trained in CPR.
CPR started out reasonably complex, and then eventually morphed into, what I consider to be, unrealistically difficult for the average person (Example: those electronic, recording manikins). Then they dropped all that in favor of getting more people trained. At least, that was the AHA line, which I found logical. I preferred the AHA over the ARC, primarily because that were less averse to change. I was fortunate to have had a conversation with Dr. Henry Heimlich about the Red Cross, involving the their procedure of administering the Heimlich Maneuver. He was furious at them for being so late to change. During the conversation, he also revealed something I didn’t know, that he was born in Wilmington,DE.
I’ve been out of the game for a few years. If I had to administer CPR, we’d both probably croak. But I think I would still try.
I will soon be 77 myself therefore I would be willing to take the 10 more years that lady had. It is my understanding that she had a DNR order. Having just coming close to buying the Farm my self this past month and prior to going under emergency surgery I informed the doctor in my wife’s presents that I also opted for a DNR no tubes up my nose and ass thank you.
“CPR more often prolongs seniors’ suffering than saves lives”
Headline from The Guardian Unlimited 3-6-2013
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/nurse-refuse-cpr-seniors-suffering
auntie dem, feeding people prolongs their suffering, too. Also medical treatment of any kind. It’s all designed to get us a little more time in this vale of tears. By this reasoning, she should have refused to call 911 at all, and been furnished with a stylish knife to administer the coup de grace.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sh8mNjeuyV4
Why don’t you STFU, get a law degree and have yourself appointed to the bench? That way you’ll get to use your amazing powers of judgment for the public good.
http://www.radiolab.org/blogs/radiolab-blog/2013/jan/15/bitter-end/
miscreant is right according to AHA http://www.heart.org/idc/groups/heart-public/@wcm/@ecc/documents/downloadable/ucm_317350.pdf
“Most victims of out-of-hospital cardiac arrest do not receive
any bystander CPR. There are probably many reasons for this,
but one impediment may be the A-B-C sequence, which starts
with the procedures that rescuers find most difficult, namely,
opening the airway and delivering breaths. Starting with chest
compressions might encourage more rescuers to begin CPR”
Also:
“Hands-Only (compression-only) CPR is easier for an
untrained rescuer to perform and can be more readily guided
by dispatchers over the telephone. In addition, survival rates
from cardiac arrests of cardiac etiology are similar with either
Hands-Only CPR or CPR with both compressions and rescue
breaths. However, for the trained lay rescuer who is able, the
recommendation remains for the rescuer to perform both
compressions and ventilations.”
So besides the technical application of CPR, the first line up there is the takeaway to understand -most victims don’t get any bystander CPR.