Shocking Video Shows Brooklyn Hospital's Neglect as Patient Dies in Emergency Room

A distressing video was released showing a 49-year-old psychiatric patient left to die in the waiting room of Kings County Hospital. The video shows the woman, identified as Esmin Green, slump and fall to the ground--and two guards and a doctor look in and ignore her. Finally, a nurse comes to check on her, but not before kicking Green, who was dead at that point.

Attorney Robert Cohen told WNBC, "It's an emergency room, it's not a bus terminal. People who are in desperate need of services, care and attention come here to be treated and to get better. They don't come here to die alone." And the NYCLU's Donna Lieberman said, "Thank God for the videotape because no one would have believed this could have happened."

You can watch the video after the jump, but here's how it breaks down, per the Daily News:

Green, 49, taken to the unit for "agitation," keels over out of her chair at 5:32a.m., according to the time stamp on the video. She had been sitting about 3feet from an observation window. Two other patients were in the room.

Green is lying facedown on the floor, her legs splayed, when a security guard strolls by at 5:53 a.m., looks at her for about 20 seconds and then walks away.

She is writhing on the floor, thrashing her legs, about 6 a.m., when her medical chart contends she was "awake, up and about, went to the bathroom."

Green rolls on her back at 6:04a.m. She stops moving at 6:08 a.m., but two minutes later a security guard pushed his chair into camera view.

He never gets out of the chair, but looks at Green and scoots away. A female patient who was in and out of the room finally brings a clinic staffer to check the woman and a crash cart is summoned.

Green died on the morning of June 19--she had been brought to the ER almost 24 hours earlier. The guards and nurse have been suspended, and the doctor was fired.

Kings County, called "chamber of filth, decay, indifference and danger" in a previous lawsuit, is currently being investigated after other charges of neglect and abuse. And the hospital may have faked their reports about Green, saying Green was okay in order to cover up the death. The NYC Health and Hospitals Corp. said, "We are shocked and distressed by this situation"

Today show segment about the video:

Raw video:

Contact the author of this article or email tips@gothamist.com with further questions, comments or tips.

By Jen Chung in News on July 1, 2008 11:05 AM

Comments [rss]

Tinderbox

This is what we'd have more of to look forward to with Obamacare.

Zachary

THOSE PEOPLE SHOULD BE ARRESTED!!!! It is called murder when you just sit and stare at a person and watch them die. Murder is ILLEGAL!!!!! ARREST THE DOCTOR AND PATIENTS AND THE GUARDS THAT WERE JUST WATCHING!!!!

laurentenney

VIGIL FOR MS. GREEN 7/25/06

FOR DETAILS

www.theopalproject.org/vigil/h....

WE THE PEOPLE

###

trc

Beth Haroules from Ny civil liberties union is just too funny.. who does not expect to find such conditions in New York ?

New York became the cesspool of the civilized world!

a thing like that could never happen in a third world country, because we may have narrower roads but at least we give a damn about our fellow man so greetings from the third world country - Croatia.

robingee

"No one steps in anymore. No one helps."

Gothamist just reported about the lady who gave birth on the train platform and lots of people helped. It depends. But that woman who is ranting as they wheel the patient away should shut her trap, since she did nothing either.

NannyState

#22 has a point. Think of the context: a psychiatric emergency patient falls onto the floor and sprawls. Could be Catatonia, right? So she waits until a doctor can see her. It's happened before right? That is the plight of so many mentally ill persons. They come down with real physical maladies and all anyone sees is their psych profile. How many have died this way? It's more than heartbreaking, it's downright maddening.

west side Michael

Oh ! I thought she was one of those Negro corpses tied onto a streetlight pole during Katrina we

saw on live TV.

cucarachita

Never ever EVER go to the hospital. My health plan is as follows: if I ever get a really bad illness, I take a flight to France where I can afford care full price (cheaper than with insurance here).

waitwhat

This is horrible. I wonder how much of this stuff goes on across the country and didn't end up on video.

Jen S

I'm sure they thought she was a loon who was acting out, but really...you're going to leave even a loon lying on the floor that long without checking on her? Where's the professional responsibility?

hubcap

"lasseiz faire" am i right.. USA greatest nation ever

Matt Joyce

From what little I know of this womans life, death may have been an escape.

robingee

also: New York Magazine rated Kings County as the #8 Best Emergency Care Hospital in 2006.

robingee

What is the lady in the beige outfit talking about and gesturing the whole time, I wonder?

babyhitler

#27- doctor's decide who lives or dies everyday. Who are they? Individuals. Hunter S. Thompson said it best when Football season was over. A burgler can end your life tomorrow. Right, Wrong. Those questions are moot. Watch Soylent Green. People would be wishing for death in suicide machines if the Earth was that overpopulated. Right Now, there is still breathing room so people can waste their lives thinking about these moralistic choices. You'll never find the answer. Thanatos will always be there regardless.

allie25

not saying who should live and who should die, you pious asshole, just saying, it's my personal choice not to spend my later years completley reliant on tubes and machines.

spreetaper

Who are you to decide who should live and die.

I know plenty of people who live active lives into their 90's. I've seen plenty of people wasting away already at the age of 20. Should we be ending their lives too?

lanciano

>>gfrance wrote: Wow. A world of difference from Gray's Anatomy isn't it?

actually i wouldn't feel safe at Seattle Grace either. with all those doctors and their love triangles and sex troubles, they barely have time to pay attention to their patients.