By Sadef Ali Kully
Three Far Rockaway nursing home employees were arrested and arraigned last week on neglect and abuse-related charges before Judge John Zoll in Queens Criminal Court, the state attorney general said.
Two nurses and one nurse aide, employees of the Peninsula Nursing and Rehabilitation Center, allegedly dragged a disabled and bleeding patient across the hallway floor of the nursing home and neglected to treat that patient as he lay on the floor bleeding from his head for over 20 minutes, according to the criminal complaint. These acts of neglect and abuse were captured by facility-maintained surveillance cameras, according to the court papers.
“Caregivers must know that we will vigorously prosecute behavior that endangers our most vulnerable citizens,”Attorney General Eric Schneiderman said.
The criminal complaint alleged that on Oct. 23, 2014, nurses Funmilola Taiwo and Esohe Agbonkpolor and nurse aide Emmanuael Ufot were on duty at the Peninsula Nursing and Rehabilitation Center, when a 51-year-old resident, who suffered from multiple debilitating conditions including altered mental status, fell in front of Agbonkpolor while in a hallway. It went on to allege that the resident was left lying on his back on the floor for 12 minutes before Ufot grabbed the injured resident by the arm and dragged him down the hallway into his room.
The video showed that 25 minutes later, the resident, wearing only a backless gown that was pulled up over his unclad waist, emerged from his room, crawling along the floor on his back, bleeding profusely from a wound to the back of his head and another serious wound on his jaw, the complaint said.
Prosecutors contend that for the following 20 minutes, nurses Taiwo and Agbonkpolor, working just a few feet away, largely ignored the resident and never treated his wounds. Instead, Ufot, in another attempt to get the resident back into his room, allegedly grabbed him by his hospital gown that was by then twisted around his neck and dragged him along the floor and dropped him abruptly in front of his room, according to the complaint.
Each of the three defendants, Funmilola Taiwo, 34, of Far Rockaway; Esohe Agbonkpolor, 39; of Arverne, and Emmanuael Ufot, 36, of Far Rockaway, were charged with endangering the welfare of an incompetent or physically disabled person, a felony, and willful violation of health laws, a misdemeanor, Schneiderman said.
The entire incident was captured by hallway surveillance cameras maintained by Peninsula Nursing and Rehabilitation Center. The management at Peninsula turned the video over to law enforcement. All three defendants were either terminated or resigned from employment at Peninsula, the attorney general said.
Reach Reporter Sadef Ali Kully by e-mail at skull
