Two employees at a nursing home in Austin, Texas, have been arrested after a 73-year-old woman, Cynthia ‘Cindy’ Pierce, died from hypothermia. The staff members, Mendi Ramsay and Rochelle Alvarado, allegedly left a window open in Ms. Pierce’s room during the winter storm Uri, which caused widespread power outages and at least 250 deaths in Texas.
According to court documents, Ramsay and Alvarado failed to check on Ms. Pierce for several hours after changing her clothes and bedding. The family claims that the nursing home did not take necessary precautions to keep Ms. Pierce warm when the power went out.
Ms. Pierce’s daughter, Holly Ferguson, expressed her shock at the tragic turn of events. The district attorney’s office stated that the staff’s negligence led to Ms. Pierce being in an unheated room with open windows, which contributed to her hypothermia-related death.
While the employees’ lawyer, Sam Bassett, argues that his clients did everything possible to ensure resident safety during the unprecedented weather event, the nursing home’s legal representative, Joshua Saegert, acknowledged the charges and expressed condolences to the family.
The former employees are set to appear in court in the upcoming week to address the charges. The family, still grieving the loss, was not informed of the situation at the nursing home and expressed their devastation over Ms. Pierce’s preventable death due to freezing temperatures.
