“Outside the Rehabilitation Center at Hollywood Hills, where eight residents died on Sept. 13 in the wake of Hurricane Irma. Credit Jason Henry for The New York Times”
“HOLLYWOOD, Fla. — The emergency room workers at Memorial Regional Hospital rushed the first patient to Room 9, which was devoted to the hope and practice of arresting death. They threaded fluid lines into her veins and readied a breathing tube. Even through gloves, they could feel the heat corseting the 84-year-old woman’s body.
“As they prepared to insert a catheter, they saw what looked like steam rising from her legs.
“The numbers from the catheter’s temperature gauge would not stop climbing. The nurses, respiratory technicians and other medical staff watched it halt at last at 41.9 degrees Celsius — 107 degrees Fahrenheit.
“It was only the fourth-highest body temperature Memorial would record that morning among elderly patients being evacuated from the nursing home nearby, the Rehabilitation Center at Hollywood Hills, where air-conditioning had failed after Hurricane Irma chewed up power lines across the state.
“Eight residents of the nursing home were dead by the end of that day, Sept. 13, and three who were among the 140 evacuated have died since.”
Click here to continue reading this New York Times article in its entirety.
