Video surveillance taken from a Brooklyn hospital revealed a woman dying on the waiting room floor while patients and staffers ignored her.
The woman has been identified as 49 year-old Esmin Green who had checked into the waiting room nearly 24 hours prior to the incident.
Green sat in the corner of the waiting room, with another patient a few feet to her right, and a woman in khaki clothes diagonally across from her. Green had been in the emergency room of Kings County Hospital for nearly 24 hours when she leaned forward, kneeling in front of her seat, at around 5: 32 am. Seconds later, she collapsed face down on the floor and thrashed before lying still.
Staff and security did not arrive on the scene until almost an hour later.
At the time when the woman collapsed, video surveillance showed at least two people sitting across from her. Throughout the 45 minutes that Green lay dead on the floor, at least four or five people passed through the room. When a police officer arrived on the scene, the video showed at least two people in the waiting room. The woman wearing khaki clothes sat in the same seat the entire time until staff confronted her.
According to a press release filed by the New York City Health and Hospital Corporation, which owns Kings County Hospital in Brooklyn, Green was brought into the hospital's Psychiatric Emergency Department on the morning of June 18. Hospital officials say she was suffering form mild psychosis and had refused treatment. Green was waiting for an available bed when she collapsed and died on June 19.
The video was released by lawyers who are suing Kings County Hospital for abuse and neglect of mental health patients.
"We are shocked and distressed by this situation," said a press release from the hospital.
The release claims that immediately after the incident was discovered on June 20, the hospital fired staff involved. The video was turned over to health officials.
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