Nursing home nurse takes painful liberties with old boarder’s foot

But what happened in a palliative care unit in Wisconsin? Last June, a Pierce County medical examiner contacted authorities after performing an autopsy on a deceased 62-year-old man. The reason ? His foot was not attached to his body but was rather “lying next to him”. The man had been placed in a nursing home in March 2022 after suffering frostbite on both feet, which had become necrotic, after falling in his own residence. On May 27, Mary Brown would have taken dangerous liberties. This 38-year-old nurse would have decided toamputate the foot of his patient for “relieve his suffering” and to give it back “a bit of dignity”, according to what she described to investigators. Except that she had no authorization to practice such an act.

“The administrators of the nursing home agreed that it was not within the scope of Mary Brown’s practice to carry out such a procedure and the opinion of a doctor was necessary before any amputation was carried out”, we read in the complaint, unveiled by CBS. The facility’s administrator initially asked the nurse to stabilize the man’s foot, which was only connected by a tendon, “because the victim was about to die”. During her hearing, Mary Brown explained that she thought she was doing the right thing and even asked her superior what to do with this amputated limb.. According to her, the resident did not suffer during the intervention. But one of his colleagues assured that he had “it hurt a lot when she took his foot off”.

What is the nurse risking?

During their hearings with the nurses of the hospice, the investigators heard very suspicious testimonies. According to several of his colleagues, Mary Brown intended to have taxidermy the foot of the sexagenarian because his family owned a taxidermy shop. At least two nurses told police the 38-year-old intended to do a foot display with some sort of sign warning people to remember to “wear their boots”. Today, Mary Brown is facing one count of physical abuse of an elderly person and one count of dismemberment. Both counts carry a maximum sentence of 40 years in prison.