A Wisconsin nurse has pleaded no contest to negligently abusing a affected person after she amputated a person’s foot with out his permission.
Mary Okay. Brown’s plea earlier this week in a Pierce County courtroom signifies that two felony costs in opposition to her shall be dismissed: bodily abuse of an elder particular person deliberately inflicting nice bodily hurt, and mayhem. She had beforehand pleaded not responsible.
In Could 2022, Brown was employed as a nurse at a senior dwelling house in Spring Valley, the place Doug McFarland, 62, was being handled after a fall in his house a number of months earlier.
McFarland had contracted extreme frostbite in his toes, which each turned necrotic, and had reportedly been moved to hospice care, in accordance with ABC affiliate KSTP.
Courtroom paperwork say that Brown referred to the McFarland’s decrease limbs as “mummy toes” and instructed investigators that she thought amputation would “make the standard of life higher for him,” KSTP reported.
Authorities later found that Brown had amputated McFarland’s proper foot on Could 27, 2022, however didn’t get permission from McFarland or his doctor beforehand.
In accordance with court docket paperwork cited by KSTP, one facility administrator instructed authorities that whereas he thought a health care provider may need agreed that amputation was obligatory, he particularly instructed Brown to not carry out the process, which was outside the scope of her observe, KSTP reported.
McFarland died days after the amputation.
Brown’s unauthorized amputation got here to gentle after the county medical expert flagged that McFarland’s foot had been separated from his physique.
Brown was charged six months after the incident, and her nursing license was suspended in early 2023. Spring Valley Well being and Rehab Heart mentioned Brown was now not employed with the corporate.
Though Brown claimed that she believed the amputation would ease her affected person’s struggling, co-workers recommended she may need had another excuse for wanting McFarland’s foot faraway from his physique.
One nurse reportedly instructed investigators Brown had talked about that her household had a taxidermy store and she or he wished to protect the necrotic foot with an indication studying “Put on your boots, children.”
“After I came upon, I just about misplaced it,” McFarland’s sister Heidi McFarland told KSTP. “He had a coronary heart of gold and he was an exceptional artist,” she mentioned of her brother.
Brown is not going to serve any time for the crime, however must pay $443 in court docket prices, KSTP reported.