Fox 8 Exclusive: Nursing home evacuee exposes conditions inside Independence center where at least 6 died

INDEPENDENCE, La. (WVUE) - In an exclusive interview with Fox 8′s Lee Zurik, a Louisiana nursing home patient who was evacuated last Friday into the Robert Dean-owned senior shelter in Tangipahoa Parish exposes what conditions were really like inside during Hurricane Ida and its aftermath.

The patient provided Fox 8 with video from inside the facility. It shows several elderly and disabled patients without beds, laying on dirty air mattresses or worse. One fellow patient tells the patient with the phone camera that he asked to be cleaned of urine-soaked clothing hours earlier and still was waiting for hygienic care.

The video also shows that, despite state-mandated precautions to prevent the spread of Covid-19, patients were not positioned a safe social distance apart and mask use was not being enforced inside the warehouse building.

The patient also provided a photograph of a breakfast provided to patients, which he described as “half an egg and two slices of stale bread.”

See a spelling or grammar error in our story? Click Here to report it. Please include the headline.

Copyright 2021 WVUE. All rights reserved.