94-Year-Old Woman Trapped in Nursing Home Walk-in Freezer
Investigators in Calabasas, CA have launched an investigation to discover how a 94-year-old woman ended up being trapped in a walk-in freezer in a Calabasas retirement home. Mollye Fischer was discovered in the facility’s walk-in freezer but the report states nobody seemed to know how she wound up in there. The retirement home is reported to be an upscale home, costing $70,000 a year to house residents. According to the report, the incident occurred on October 28th when facility employees were unable to find the 94-year-old woman anywhere in the facility.
The facility’s vice president stated that the facility has taken appropriate action against the employees that were involved in the incident and that the woman is now safely back at the facility after a hospital visit to ensure she was still in good health. The facility vice president stated that there are locks in areas of the facility where residents should not have access to, however, he stated the lock to the kitchen area was not functioning properly and the padlock on the freezer was unlocked. This is the same facility where a previous employee, Cesar Ulloa, was arrested and convicted of torture and abuse less than a year ago.
The incident involving Ulloa several months ago where he was found jumping onto an elderly resident’s chest and physically hurting others was a terrible incident but things continue to worsen for this facility with this new incident. The fact that the locks were not functional in the first place is clearly a case of blatant negligence. There is no excuse for a facility that is supposed to maintain the care and health of elderly residents to act so negligently as to leave areas of the facility unlocked for any resident to walk into. If an area is supposed to remain locked at all times, employees should always check to make sure that those areas are locked when they leave. The issue is compounded because of the criminal acts of torture and elder abuse several months ago. This facility continues to present a negative image for itself as a result of these terrible acts of abuse and negligence.
