Nurse Who Refused to Give CPR to a Dying Woman Is Being Investigated

Harrowing 911 recording shows the nurse refusing, saying it was against the rules

A nurse who ignored a 911 dispatcher's heartbreaking pleas to give CPR to a dying woman is now being criminally investigated, the AP reports.

87-year-old woman Lorraine Bayless collapsed at a California independent living home. A nurse called 911 and was told by dispatcher Tracey Halvorson to start CPR. The nurse refused, saying the facility's rules didn't allow it.

"I understand if your boss is telling you, you can't do it," said the dispatcher. "But...as a human being...you know, is there anybody that's willing to help this lady and not let her die?"

"Not at this time," the nurse answered.

Halvorson tried to reassure the nurse that her employer couldn't be sued, saying the EMS "takes the liability for this call." Later Halvorson asked:

Is there a gardener? Any staff, anyone who doesn't work for you? Anywhere? Can we flag someone down in the street and get them to help this lady? Can we flag a stranger down? I bet a stranger would help her...She is going to die if we don't get this started, do you understand?

The woman had no pulse and wasn't breathing by the time the first responders arrived.

While it's not yet clear whether CPR would have saved her life, the recording has prompted calls for new laws to prevent another incident like this.

The director of the apartments, Jeffrey Toomer, defended both the nurse and the facility's policy. He sent condolences to the woman's family and said the home would review the incident.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KprSqopr5rQ

Via AP. H/T savagemazx.

Should the nurse have broken the rules and given CPR?

[Vance1]

Just shows that this heartless person doesnt actually care about other people.
She must be a union member!!

[frigginhell]

Sure, it has nothing to do with the greedy bastards who own the home and don't want to be held liable if someone is injured while receiving cpr at all. It must be a union that made the rule. Not the owner or a lawyer in accounting at all...

[Cheenoguy]

@frigginhell
Remember it is never the greedy people making millions it is always the people who are lucky if they make a living wage.

[Keyjo]

This "heartless person" and the deceased are both victims of corporate capitalism.
Rule one of American capitalism is "PROFITS BEFORE PEOPLE!"

[InjusticeSucks]

No she is a Member of the GOPs Councils of death Panel supported my all of the GOP/,.

[PoliticalSpice]

Morelikely she wasn't a union member. A union member would have given the CPR knowing her union could contest her being fired in arbitration...

[Ryuo]

Geez, that's even worse than the Death Panels. Why not just streamline the process and euthanize people we don't are about?

[jessejaymes]

How do you know that this woman was not in a community where they are not allowed to resuscitate because the people there demanded that they not be resuscitated? How is this worse than death panels? The woman was 87 year old. She had outlived the average for women. I don't want to spend my last days in a wheel chair and a bed and being rolled out in the sunshine to bake for an hour each day. Do you? This woman has more dignity in death than she could have possibly had in life. Who died and made you God?

[Ryuo]

@jessejaymes good questions, but I assumed that if the lady had a DNR the nurse would know about it. By default, I'd assume people want to survive, or they wouldn't be there now.

[jessejaymes]

@Ryuo I watched my wife die over three years. I watched my sister die over a year. I watched my wife's grandmother die in a nursing home. I was her favorite and every time I visited she told me she just wanted to go. She was 91 when she went. We talked for hours about her life coming to America from China and how she raised her children and anything she wanted to talk about. But she always finished with the deceleration "Jessie don't let them do this to you. This is no way to die. Just waiting. Every day is 10 years long. " I was her favorite and she was mine. And I cried when she died. Tears of relief that she finally was suffering no more. We can't give immortality to those we love. We warehouse our old people in these kind of places. 87 was a long life and probably a good life because she had someone with the money to put her there. But she's not hurting now and I won't judge this as a death panel decision because nobody lives forever.

[MongoAPillager]

@jessejaymes a lot of people that age are a lot more productive than people half their age,even if wheel chair bound etc.once we loose the life experience of their generation i think we are toast..plus i know people in there 80's still working and getting around fine..this ladies condition may have been such that she would have been fine once resuscitated

[aerobatty]

@jessejaymes If people don't want to be resuscitated, they sign Do Not Resuscitate orders.

[jessejaymes]

I have do not a resuscitate demand on my person at all times. I don't know the particulars of this situation and I'm not going to "take a side here". All I'm going to say is I hope I don't live to 87 years old and I hope if I do and I collapse that people will mind their own business and let me go. Jeez.

[AlexMIA]

Isn't that a little extreme considering you are only 66? They would have said she had a DNR by now, I would think. If you hear the 911 call, the lady was being an ass.

[martydotcom]

if nothing else Jessie we can depend one the GOP to breathe life into the dead particularly when the dead is ACORN .
The HR budget has now defunded the long defunct organization Acorn. Acorn ceased to exist in 2010 and hasn't been funded since

[jessejaymes]

@AlexMIA Alex you know I try and try and try with you but you just won't have it will you? I played Division one wide receiver at 6' 175 -185. I was a third down "possession receiver". You could need 7 yards and I'd get you 8 even sandwiched between two 225 lb linebackers. I would hold onto the ball. I had a broken collarbone, dislocated hip, broken noses, broken ankle and outside of football two broken wrists, broken ankle again, shot, stabbed and facial reconstruction surgery from a screwdriver being plunged into my face three times. Today I have back, neck, hip, knee and ankle problems. I never spend a day not in pain. Not one. So if you don't mind I base my opinions on people making their own decisions for themselves. The Nurse may be a dick. Or the nurse may have just been following instructions. May have been following the deceased instructions. How did you get to be such a know it all?

[SavageMazx]

According to the latest reports she did not have a DNR, strangely enough her daughter who is also a nurse has come out in defense of the home and of the actions of the nurse on duty.

[SavageMazx]

@SavageMazx

http://www.cleveland.com/nation/index.ssf/201...

[DerivePI]

Can the law force someone else into action? I think the 4th amendment coul be leveraged. Especially if you consider its overleveraging for Roe v Wade.

[Ryuo]

I don't know if the 4th can be invoked - the nurse could claim the woman had a *reasonable* seizure.

However, the 5th might work: since we're all owned by the State now, they could invoke Eminent Domain to save her.

[DerivePI]

@Ryuo lets hope not.

[wonka45ACP]

I would ask the same question, because apparently police officers can't be forced to protect our lives.

[DerivePI]

@wonka45ACP - Its funny how people think the police are there for them. If you report a crime and the police get there on say... Sunday, you have no recourse except through political persuasion.

[BossTweed]

One of the local Calif. commentors said you can't blame the Nursing Home. In Calif. every law favors the lawyers. They are the second largest contributor to the State Dem Party after the Public Empl Unions. Behind every defibulator is a gaggle of greedy ambulance chasing attys. Citizens rights never come first in Calif.

[PoliticalSpice]

Your statement every law favors the lawyers makes no sense because while the lawyers for the nursing home may by favored, the lawyer for the womens family are not favored...

[RoFroh]

As reprehensible as this story is us it a sign if the times that losing your job is actually a choice when faced with the death of another person

[seedtick]

She should have provided any care she knew how to do. Did she, or did she not take an oath when becoming a nurse. Now, I don't know the laws of California, nor do I care what they were. It is hard to understand how someone can actually watch someone in that kind of physical distress without trying to give aid. And, the lack of emotion she expressed in her phone converstation is unbelievable. Now, I am not too emotional during a crisis, I tend to be a reactionary who responds immediately to the crisis. So, maybe I am not the one to give an opinion concerning this incident. But, there it is anyway.

[No_Bama]

That's the sad litigious state of the country we live in now. You have to worry about getting sued because they allow people to sue for recusitating a person and they die or you injure them during the recusitation, and now thay want to make it a crime if you don't do it at all to protect yourself from frivilous litigation. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

[jessejaymes]

There are retirement communities in both California and Arizona where old people go to die. They have do not resuscitate demands in their files. How did all of your right wingers suddenly become experts on this case? Are you that afraid of dying?

[BossTweed]

I'm with you.....DNR would be my choice at 86. But, the dead womans' daughter says there was NO DNR for her Mother at Glenview Gardens.

[jessejaymes]

@BossTweed then on who's authority was the Nurse acting? That remains to be seen. Guess that's why there is an investigation as there should be if the Nurse broke policy. But Nurses don't set policy. Administrations do and if the location had a DNR policy the daughter should have known that. I just oppose people making snap judgements on something like this because we simply don't know why the nurse refused CPR at this time.

[Jet_Silverman]

It seems to me that if the woman had a DNR, the nurse would have mentioned it.

[jessejaymes]

@Jet_Silverman Someone else just posted that the daughter of the deceased woman is a nurse as well and supporting the refusing Nurse. I haven't read that yet but are you going to go against the daughter also?

[Jet_Silverman]

@jessejaymes Yes. It wasn't the daughter's life. The mother was in a home, so they obviously were't broke. Maybe the daughter just wanted her mother's money.

[kathyparsell]

I would rather be fired for saving a life than infamous for deliberately watching someone under my care die!

[methinks]

Don't nurses have something similar to the Hippocratic Oath that they follow?

[kathyparsell]

@methinks
I would have thought so. I have several friends who are either RNs or FNPs, who say that while personally they would have done anything to save her, they don't want to condemn the nurse without more info. For me the recording says it all.

[NTBFW]

Damn a job. Do the right thing. I was looking for a job when I found this one.

[ctc]

A bit much to expect the nurse(maybe even part-time or weekend)at an assisted living facility(not a nursing home)to know who has an active DNR order on file, or who has a pacemaker, or any number of other conditions that make CPR futile for an 86 year old. She called 911......the woman had about the same chance that you or I would have had.
If she would have had a DNR on file and the nurse revives her to a vegetable state.......big lawsuit.

[BetsYrOSs5119]

It's your job as a nurse, no matter how many hours a week you work, to KNOW THOSE THINGS. Period. If you work regularly with REGULAR residents, you ought to know things like that. It's part of your JOB TO KNOW! for exactly THIS REASON. Ignorance is no excuse.

[BetsYrOSs5119]

There's something called 'scope of practice' that ALL highly trained medical personnel fall under. That basically means you have to help, even when the rules say you don't have to. You're bound by your hypocratic(sp?) oath to do no harm. Doctors, Nurses, and EMT's all fall under this 'scope of practice.' It was WRONG for this nurse not to try to get somebody else in there to at least help her perform CPR on the woman. Pure evil drove her to say 'Not at this time.' It means she was too lazy to RUN out into the street and get someone else. While she didn't have to do the CPR herself, the rules do NOT EXONERATE her from going elsewhere for that help. This is a deriliction of duty she might not recover from.
And if there was a DNR order on file, she might be able to avoid charges, but she'll be hard pressed to find a job now. Watch that nursing home empty out over the course of the next 3 weeks.

[Hireman]

I don't blame her for not helping, rules or no. I personally would have helped, even though I haven't done CPR in 20 years, but that's me. There are Good Samaritan laws on the books for litigation protection, but unless that is someone's job to save lives, it's not required. I do wonder, however, if she could have found someone else willing...

[texas_cutie75]

I am a nurse, I worked in a facility with seniors, or oldsters as my DON referred to them as. Way on earth did she call 911 if she wasn't going to do a damn thing about this!?! This world is going to hell in a hand basket on roller skates!! RIP little lady, hopefully she didn't have much pain.

[Cheenoguy]

I don't think it is reasonable to call this woman a nurse. A nurse would have started CPR while a receptionist or even another resident called 99.
I'd rather end up having to work at Wendy's then keep my job because I let someone die.

[texas_cutie75]

@Cheenoguy
This just breaks my heart. I got attached to all my residents. There are many questions running through my mind, was the lady a DNR? What kind of facility is this? Where were the other staff members? Where were the other residents? Were there visitors in the facility? Why didn't anyone do something?

[Cheenoguy]

@texas_cutie75
Appears she was not DNR. It is the facility policy to not perform CPR.
I know around here nursing home nurses make next to nothing. Guess what kind of quality that gets them.

[texas_cutie75]

@Cheenoguy
Actually in my neck of the woods, nursing home nurses make pretty good money. I was very happy in the home setting. What kind of nursing school did this "woman" go to. How completely heartless!!

[texas_cutie75]

@Cheenoguy
Ms. Bayless was a DNR, the nurse was a moron, she shouldn't have called 911.

[MellowGuy]

My sister works as a nurse and she had a patient start to die and she and another nurse revived the patient. After the ordeal, the patient wanted to smoke, but the doctor said that he would only allow it if the patient signed a DNR order. He got to smoke and then die.

[gregtoye]

Wow that nurse should be in jail she didn't have to do it she could have let someone else do it I say arrest this women and fine the crap out of her nursing home

[Keyjo]

The home is "assisted living," not a "nursing home."
Although the employee is a nurse, she was not hired to be a nurse, but rather an attendant. Had she rendered aid, she likely would have lost jet job. Despite any public opinions.
The parent company wants to avoid any malpractice liability. The "hands off" policy is more fiscally feasible, as chicken shirt as it is.
This is just another example of American style capitalism, putting profits before human life, the quality of life, even if it involves hundreds, thousands of lives.
This is a perfect example of why insurance companies should become non profits, administered by the government, not the private sector.
Insurance companies should serve those who they cover, not those who invest.
This woman's death falls on the heads of capitalist demons, not this nurse who will ultimately be thrown under the bus for following regulations.

[ctc]

There is at least one report that the woman signed a DNR form and apparently to the dismay of many.....her wishes were followed.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-22874...

[Keyjo]

@ctc
I haven't have heard that she didn't, and now that she did.
Despite a DNR or not, it is still the policy of the company that owns the facility to NOT render aid, but rather call 911 and wait. Residents sign an,agreement acknowledging

[JeanJeannieCA]

A human being with a normal brain does not calmly watch someone die. Cold as ice.

[MadAmerican]

This place is like a motel. They just want your money and then for you to go away. How can this woman be so uncaring. What comes around goes around!

[CaryNickel]

I think she would have had a better chance of living if she WERE at a motel. At least someone with CPR knowledge could step up an do what they were trained to do. That this "nurse" refused to perform what she was qualified to do, out of simple human decency, is a travesty.

[Dan_Tien]

It was a sad thing, but It is no secret that money is more important than human life. Isn't this indicative of the same stand that approves of cutting medicare and other social services in favor of tax cuts because people have no right to health care?. "One death is a tragedy; one million is a statistic." - Joseph Stalin