Posted on 03/06/2020 10:29:01 AM PST by datura
I t was odd, the firefighters thought, how many calls were coming from the Life Care nursing facility in Kirkland.
The day before, Thursday, had been especially bad. Five separate calls for respiratory distress or fever. After several calls, the firefighters masked up -- they believed something worrisome was spreading, maybe a bad flu.
But it wasn’t the flu. Through the chain of command, firefighters learned that management at Life Care said a resident and a health worker had been tested the week before for coronavirus, or COVID-19, a virus that had been especially cruel to the elderly and infirm.
Evan Hurley, a 9-year veteran with Kirkland Fire and a union trustee, said a firefighter relayed this story: On Friday, the firefighter arrived at Life Care, walked in, and saw a charge nurse in just her scrubs. No mask, no protective gown.
“Hey, you guys are supposed to be in self-quarantine,” the firefighter said.
“No, we’re not,” the nurse replied.
Well, our chain of command talked to your management, and they say something different.”
The nurse insisted; she hadn’t heard anything, she said.
The firefighter looked down the hall and saw two caregivers in scrubs -- no mask or gown.
“What the hell?” the firefighter thought. “Who is not telling you that you have two suspected coronavirus cases?”
Later the nurse and firefighters would learn that it was more than just two suspected cases: Two people from Life Care had died the week before from coronavirus. Eight more who had spent time at Life Care would die in the following week.
At 10 that night, the firefighters heard from their captain.
“You’re shut down,” the captain said. The first coronavirus death had been reported, and the firefighters had been exposed, as had many from across the department.
In total, 31 firefighters and 3 police officers would ultimately be quarantined or isolated. As of this writing, 18 are showing symptoms.
The next morning, Saturday, Gov. Jay Inslee announced state of emergency and officials announced the first death in Washington state – and first in the U.S. – a man in his 50s with an underlying health condition. The man died at EvergreenHealth community hospital in Kirkland, a seven-minute drive from the Life Care facility.
Officials also mentioned the two people from Life Care with coronavirus – a health worker and a resident.
Hearing this news, Kevin Connolly and his wife, Jody, were shocked, he wrote on Facebook. Jody’s father was there, but Life Care had not called about a possible outbreak, he wrote.
The Connollys called Life Care, where a receptionist “told us not to believe everything you hear on the news,” Connolly said on Facebook.
Residents did not know they were living amid an outbreak, he said. Staff were given masks, but residents were not. For dinner that Saturday night, his father-in-law was given half a sweet potato.
Unlike Connolly, Carmen Gray, whose mother is at Life Care, heard from the center on Saturday. Life Care would no longer receive visitors, Gray was told.
Gray was nervous. She had visited Life Care almost daily, and recently twice with her 4-year-old granddaughter.
“We go all over the facility,” Gray said. “She loves to go to the fish tank and one other resident she’s pretty fond of.”
Gray knew that Life Care had many visitors the week leading up to news of the outbreak. “I saw visitors every day,” Gray said. “Pages and pages of people coming and going.”
Gray’s mother was ill, too, although not gravely. She’d been coughing for three days, and had a runny nose. There were signs posted around the facility saying a respiratory virus was going around -- that it was not coronavirus.
Sunday: A man, 70s, dies of presumptive coronavirus. Former resident of Life Care in Kirkland.
A woman, 70s, dies of presumptive coronavirus. Former resident of Life Care in Kirkland.
Monday: A woman, 70s, dies of presumptive coronavirus. Former resident of Life Care in Kirkland.
As the deaths were announced, a KUOW journalist camped out at Life Care in Kirkland. The word from officials was that the facility was under quarantine, so she was surprised to see family members and employees entering the building and leaving, most in masks and protective gear, but others in just their street clothes.
Officials had said 10 workers from the Centers for Disease Control were supposed to fly into Seattle, and beeline for Kirkland, but the journalist hadn’t seen them. Families said they hadn't seen them either. Calls to the governor's office, public health and the CDC, have not clarified whether anyone from the CDC has come to Seattle.
The journalist photographed two people being taken from the facility that day. A third was transported out earlier that morning.
An older person was wheeled out, oxygen mask strapped on, sitting up on a stretcher. The journalist photographed her in the blue hour of Monday as she faced out the back window of the ambulance.
Tuesday: A woman, 90s, dies of presumptive coronavirus. Former resident of Life Care in Kirkland.
On this day, Carmen Gray went to Life Care to deliver a care package for her mother: cough drops and a bowl of buttered popcorn. She walked to her mother’s window. Inside, a nurse held up her personal cell phone so that Gray could communicate with her mother.
Gray and her sister returned to their car in the Life Center parking lot and took stock of the situation. A waste management truck had been there, which made them wonder if garbage collection should proceed as normal at a facility under quarantine.
They had also seen four employees come out for their lunch breaks, wearing masks. Gray wondered if they were touching those masks, and then eating their lunch?
On Wednesday, Jeffrey Duchin, a health officer with Public Health – Seattle and King County, told reporters to assume that everyone at the Life Care nursing home has coronavirus.
By Thursday, nine people from Life Care in Kirkland would be dead, of presumed coronavirus. Life Care residents would make up 21/33 of the confirmed coronavirus cases.
Kevin Connolly took to Facebook again.
“There has been another death overnight,” he wrote. “At 3:30 a.m. one amongst us was informed her mother had passed.
“Seven hours later, around 10:30 a.m., that same person received a phone call from their Life Care Center assigned clinical representative and told her mother was doing great, no fever, showing no symptoms. When the family member told her she had been informed hours [earlier] that her mother had died, the representative simply replied that the chart must not have been updated!”
Connolly wrote that his father-in-law Jerry had moved into a private room with a bed next to an eight-foot window. The room was empty because someone else had died, and had been deep cleaned before Connolly’s father-in-law moved in.
The windows at Life Care were becoming an important connection for the residents to the outside world.
Gene Campbell, a resident, would speak to his wife Dorothy through the window on Thursday. Husband and wife each held a phone as they looked at each other through the glass. Their son Charlie Campbell had flown up from Silver City, New Mexico, to drive his mother to this window.
"At one point, she thought my dad was dead because she didn’t know where he was," Charlie Campbell said. "I thought it would be beneficial to bring her here so they could at least see each other. They miss each other very much. It’s kind of tough but it’s the best we can do at this point.”
Several firefighters remain quarantined at Station 21. They developed symptoms, but none serious enough to be admitted to a hospital. So far, one has tested negative for coronavirus.
At least two firefighters say they feel supported by the chain of command at Kirkland Fire. Bryan Vadney, the firefighters union president, says the department seems prepared. They have 10,095 masks - left over from stocking up after the outbreak of SARS, another respiratory virus - and eye protection.
“They have gone above and beyond,” says Dick Hughes, a lieutenant with Kirkland Fire, currently in isolation.
Evan Hurley says many members have looked back at the logs, curious to see if there were more calls than usual from Life Care in recent weeks.
In January, firefighters responded seven times to the Life Care facility. In February, and the first five days of March, they responded 33 times.
Firefighters are now grappling with the idea that coronavirus may have already been circulating at Life Care for weeks and that they, and Life Care workers, residents and visitors, had not been warned to take precautions, And that they may have inadvertently helped spread the virus farther.
In the days leading up to last Friday, Life Care staff and first responders were using nebulizers and CPAP machines to treat patients. “We essentially aerosolized it,” one first responder said, because before last Friday, that was standard protocol to treat patients.
“We made it worse,” he said.
Ashley Hiruko contributed reporting.
“We made it worse,” he said.
just in
KOMO News
@komonews
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2m
King County Executive Dow Constantine says there are 69 residents at Life Care Center in Kirkland, 15 have been taken to hospitals in the past 24 hours.
Nothing on the interesting part which is the initial carrier.
Most wrongful death lawsuits strike me as frivolous. If Life Care goes bankrupt because of this idiocy, it will be an entirely appropriate consequence.
In the days leading up to last Friday, Life Care staff and first responders were using nebulizers and CPAP machines to treat patients. “We essentially aerosolized it,” one first responder said, because before last Friday, that was standard protocol to treat patients.
“We made it worse,” he said.
That’s the one question that no one is asking.
Ping
Someone will blame Trump for this.
I stopped yesterday at a assisted living center where my uncle stayed before he died to pick up his mail. I had to use sanitizer on my hands in front of the nurse before I was allowed to go back to the admin offices. A nurse is asking questions to all family members before allowing them into the residence area.
Some history on some of these patients. Nothing yet on the carrier who infected them.
Coronavirus in Washington state: 6 dead, 12 others infected
KOMO TV Seattle ^ | March 2nd, 2020 | by KOMO News Staff
Posted on 3/2/2020, 11:49:42 AM by Mariner
SEATTLE - Six people have now died from the coronavirus in the Puget Sound area and at least 12 others have been infected, health officials said Monday, as King County’s top executive issued an emergency declaration in response to the outbreak.
The newest victims in King County include:
- A man in his 70s, a resident of LifeCare who was hospitalized at EvergreenHealth. The man had underlying health conditions and died Sunday.
- A woman in her 70s, a resident of LifeCare, was hospitalized at EvergreenHealth. She had underlying health conditions and died Sunday.
- A woman in her 80s, who was hospitalized at EvergreenHealth and was one of the earlier reported infected and died Sunday.
- A Snohomish County resident at EvergreenHealth has also died but details of that patient have not been given.
Gov. Jay Inslee earlier issued a statewide emergency declaration Saturday after a man in Kirkland died of COVID-19, the first such reported death in the United States.
(Excerpt) Read more at komonews.com ..
Interest comment from your posting re the cpap machines being used to treat the patients.
If the same machines were used on a sick patient was used on another patient, the second patient would get the virus. There is no way to really sterilize these machines.
Did they use tap water to fill the water tanks on the machine or other impure water?
I think it would be helpful to get an investigative team from the FDA and CDC in and document the details here. I suspect that this will be an important case study for those in Public Health programs. The outcome is sad and the paramedics called were sent into terrible risk. We all hope that learning from these situations prevents making the same mistakes in future similar situations.
I have noticed KUOW like CNBC and the WHO are leading the charge to spread as much panic as possible. KUOW.org is an NPR station..of course.
Life Care and their parent company will soon cease to exist.
There may even be risk of criminal negligence charges.
Holy Crap! Heads should roll.
I detest NPR, but this report is from the actual people involved in what happened. Rather than political spin, these are the events that took place.
How exactly is telling the truth spreading panic?? Even CNN magically seems to find truth once in a great while.
My mom’s rehab center in Texas has a sign in the lobby and a hand sanitizer machine. The sign instructs people to check in with the receptionist. There is no receptionist. The first nurse I see says to just sign the book on the reception desk. The book has two people who have signed in during the last four days. So, no one is following the sign instructions. I assume the Texas Health Department required the sign, but staff doesn’t care about following the instructions on it.
You both make a good point. That said, it really cannot be denied the party that gave us “never let a crises go to waste” have been trying use this to crash the economy.
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