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On August 27, an elderly resident of a San Mateo home passed away after she was accidentally fed dishwashing liquid instead of fruit juice. Gertrude Elizabeth Murison Maxwell was one of the three senior citizens who had to be rushed to the hospital after they consumed the caustic liquid.
San Mateo's Atria Park Senior Living Facility came under fire when its employees fed the residents a cleaning fluid that caused the death of a dementia-stricken woman. According to San Mateo Consolidated Fire, three ambulances were called to the home at around 8:30 am on Saturday. The affected residents were taken to Peninsula Hospital in Burlingame.
In a statement provided by the San Mateo facility, the case is being investigated by the local police, the state department of social services, and the facility itself. Furthermore, Atria Park officers promptly suspended the employees suspected of being involved in the disaster, which cost Maxwell her life.
In the statement, Atria Park said:
"We can confirm three of our residents were recently transported to the hospital after mistakenly being served dishwashing liquid as drinking juice. We have been working with local authorities, who have informed us that one resident passed away. Our sincerest condolences are with the family."
A source told NBC Bay Area that the tragedy was due to an unfortunate mixup where the employees fed the elderly patients the poisonous fluid instead of pouring grape juice.
Investigations are underway regarding the apparent accidental confusion that led to the death of the 93-year-old resident.
San Mateo home's resident's family asks for answers
Atria Park Senior Living Facility had been Gertrude Maxwell's home for the past nine years. Suffering from dementia, her daughter Marcia Cutchin told local media outlets that Maxwell could not feed herself, and thus needed someone to feed her at all times.
So, when the senior citizen's home told her that first responder believed the dementia patient had ingested the substance on their own, she found it hard to believe. Cutchin told KRON-TV:
"Many people, like my mother, you have to hold a cup to her mouth and tip it into her mouth."
According to the hospital, Maxwell had "severe blistering of her mouth, throat, and esophagus" due to the poisoning and nothing could be done to alleviate it.
Elder abuse attorney Kathryn Stebner said that the senior citizen facilities run by Atria all over California are no stranger to lawsuits. She told NBC Bay Area that over the course of the past four years, she herself has filed four lawsuits, ranging from falls to wounds resulting from being short-staffed. She said:
"They’ve been from falls, wounds and things like that, all of them on the basis of not having enough staff and not enough training at the facilities."
Regarding the San Mateo case, Stebner is of the opinion that something went wrong systematically:
"It didn’t come in a juice container if it’s poison, so I actually have a hard time believing that."
According to the NBC affiliate, police are working with the California Department of Social Services Ombudsman to find exactly how a senior citizen facility worker could confuse dishwashing liquid for fruit juice.
