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Woman dies after senior home employees switch juice with dishwashing liquid

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Posted at 11:21 AM, Aug 30, 2022
and last updated 2022-08-30 14:05:11-04

A 93-year-old woman died from ingesting dishwashing liquid at a California senior facility Sunday night, KGO-TV reported.

Two other seniors were hospitalized, Atria Park of San Mateo told KGO.

The senior home said the residents were given the liquid instead of juice.

“We can confirm three of our residents were recently transported to the hospital after mistakenly being served dishwashing liquid as drinking juice,” the senior home said.

Local authorities do not believe the act was intentional. But District Attorney Stephen Wagstaffe suggested employees may have been negligent.

“If it was people not being careful with the liquids and people suffered harm or death by it, that would be, of course, could be a very significant lawsuit out of it,” Wagstaffe said. “Or it could be, technically, there is a thing in the criminal law called criminal negligence.”

The employees involved have been suspended, Atria Park told KGO.