Posted on 10/09/2013 8:01:13 PM PDT by nickcarraway
A little more than two weeks after a 57-year-old patient disappeared San Francisco General Hospital, hospital officials on Wednesday confirmed they were "fairly certain" the body found in a stairwell this week was that of Lynne Spalding.
Though the hospital did not confirm the identity 100 percent, Spalding's daughter told a family friend that the body was her mother's.
Still, despite the announcement at a news conference, questions swirled about how Spalding – a British native who worked in hospitality sales – could have ended up in a remote stairwell on the fourth floor. Spalding had entered the hospital on Sept. 19 with a urinary tract infection, and was last seen on Sept. 21. A friend said she had been feeling disoriented on her medication, but a doctor on Wednesday said her condition had been improving.
"We have no idea how this happened," Chief Medical Examiner Dr. Todd May. "We are shaken to our core. What happened at the hospital is horrible. Our staff is devastated.”
Hospital staff and sheriff's deputies took no questions from reporters, and did not explain the circumstances of her death, including the timing until Tuesday morning when she was found by a member of the engineering staff on a routine check – 17 days after she walked off from her hospital room. Authorities also did not offer an explanation as to how a missing patient could be lost for more than two weeks only to be found dead in a hospital stairwell. The stairwell is a fire exit that has an alarm on it, and is locked from the outside and exits onto hospital grounds.
A nurse who first spotted Spalding missing from her room alerted the proper authorities more than two weeks ago, prompting San Francisco sheriff's deputies to searched the hospital, authorities said.
But a family spokesperson said he is "perplexed" as to how Spalding remained missing for so long if these searches had been conducted. He lauded the hospital as "stellar" but had biting words for his friend's disappearance.
"Lynne Spalding died alone in a stairwell and her body had been there for 17 days," said David Perry, a family friend.
Perry, clearly angry about the circumstances of his friend's death, also noted that it took 10 days for the hospital to issue a statement about the fact that a patient had gone missing in the first place. He was among the many friends and family who spent countless hours searching for her, putting up fliers and sharing her story on social media, including on a FIND LYNNE Facebook page.
Perry said Spalding's boyfriend "is devastated" and her daughter "is beyond words" by the loss, though the two were not in attendance at the conference.
Perry said he appreciated that the hospital came forward so quickly with the news on Spalding, but he said he's not satisfied yet with the information that's been presented.
“This is a nightmare," Perry said. "Steps must be taken to make sure this never happens again."
I was wondering about that. Are the “staff” at this hospital SEIU knuckledraggers? They may have been busy on the Washington Mall or filling out absentee ballots.
WOW! Nice diatribe! I wrote:
I would also question why they could not ascertain where she went from video surveillance. I have been in a number of hospitals in recent years due to aging/ill relatives and they have friggin cameras everywhere. I sure would not be lauding the hospital as “stellar”. There are a lot of things that have a definite stink about this.
Now tell me how you got to where you went from what I wrote. Do you work in a Hospital?
Hope the hospital doesn’t put the extra 17 days on the bill.
This gave me an idea. Build a place like this hospital to hold death row inmates. Build all kinds of one-way “exits” that lead to hallways with locked doors. No one to blame if someone just happens to wander in to one of these.
Are we supposed to assume she died immediately? How long did she suffer, trapped in the stairwell, possibly crying out for help? Was she alive when they were “searching” for her?
Hope the hospital doesn’t put the extra 17 days on the bill.
They found her after a detective said “something’s wrong, it just doesn’t smell right.”
My thoughts exactly. What a tragic story.
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