17 bodies discovered in New Jersey retirement home after idea

The call for body bags came late Saturday.

By Monday, the police in a small New Jersey town had actually gotten an anonymous idea about a body being saved in a shed outside among the state’s largest retirement home.

When authorities showed up, the corpse had actually been eliminated from the shed, but they discovered 17 bodies stacked inside in a small morgue, meant to hold no more than 4 individuals.

“They were simply overwhelmed by the amount of individuals who were ending,” said Eric C. Danielson, the police chief in Andover, a small area in Sussex County, the state’s northernmost county.

The 17 were among 68 recent deaths connected to the long-term care facility, Andover Subacute and Rehab Center I and II, including two nurses, officials stated. Of those who died, 26 people had tested positive for the virus.

For the others, the cause of death is unknown.

Of the patients who stay at the houses, housed in two buildings, 76 have checked favorable for the virus; 41 employee, including an administrator, are sick with COVID-19, the illness caused by the coronavirus, according to county health records shared Wednesday with a federal official.

Andover Subacute is not alone. Coronavirus has actually swept through the New York area’s assisted living home with ravaging and lethal speed, eliminating thousands of locals at centers dealing with personnel shortages, progressively sick patients and a lack of individual protective gear.

But with beds for 700 clients, Andover Subacute is, records show, the state’s biggest licensed facility– and the risk of ongoing spread is scary to relative who have actually turned to social networks and their regional congressman, desperate for answers and extra personnel.

“The obstacle we’re having with all of these assisted living home, is once it spreads, it’s like a wildfire,” said Rep. Josh Gottheimer, a Democrat who got the call Saturday, requesting body bags. “It’s really difficult to stop it.”

One of the owners of the center, Chaim Scheinbaum, did not return calls or emails. Employee who answered phones at the facilities said they were not authorized to speak with the news media.

Even before the pandemic, the assisted living home had actually had a hard time. Andover Subacute and Rehabilitation II just recently got a one-star rating of “much second-rate” from Medicare for staffing levels, assessments and patient care.

“I feel so powerless,” one woman, who started a group for member of the family, composed on Facebook on Tuesday. “I seem like everyone is going to get COVID. What do we do?”

Staff members at the center were asking the exact same thing.

“To all the people calling into the governor’s office, the congressman’s workplace to assist us tell them WE NEED AID,” an agent of Andover Subacute & Rehabilitation Center 2 wrote at 7: 18 p.m. Eastern time on Monday, in a Facebook post that was deleted Wednesday.

After news started to be shared Wednesday about the bodies found in the makeshift morgue, a discovery first reported by The New Jersey Herald, the fear magnified.

Gottheimer said his workplace had fielded calls from employee and worried loved ones pleading for aid. He stated he had talked to an agent of the Federal Emergency Management Agency about the possibility of sending out National Guard medics.

The state Department of Health sent two shipments containing 3,200 surgical masks, 1,400 N95 masks and 10,000 gloves to the nursing homes, stated Donna Leusner, a spokesperson. The first shipment went out about a week earlier and the second should have been provided Tuesday or Wednesday, she said.

“It’s scary for everybody– for the residents and for the staff,” Gottheimer said. “What is surprising to me is how many are dying in house, versus the healthcare facility.”

The retirement home has actually informed regional health officials that they are housing ill patients on separate wings or floorings, Danielson said. And local homeowners have actually been collecting products to contribute to the assisted living home.

Numerous women created a Facebook page and a site, Sparta Assists Healthcare Heroes, to collect needed dress, gloves and masks.

One local of Sparta, Cheryl Boggs, said she found three boxes of Tyvek matches and bootees in a storage room at the company where she works, Petro-Mechanics. She dropped them off on Monday after seeing the pleas for aid on Facebook.

“We simply wished to help,” she said.

Lily Repasch, 84, passed away three weeks ago at Andover Subacute and Rehab Center I.

Her 3 children were regular visitors to the center, even talking through a window in her last days after the state ordered all long-lasting care centers to stop enabling visitors.

The females stated the center provided no way for them to interact with their mother, who had Alzheimer’s, and offered member of the family no info. Their mother was never ever evaluated for the coronavirus.

“Her death was inevitable,” stated one daughter, Lee Repasch. “However she was a vulnerable female with dementia. It was inevitable, but it didn’t require to be like this.”

Most of the state’s assisted living home have actually reported a minimum of one case of the coronavirus, which since Wednesday had infected 6,815 clients of long-term care centers in New Jersey. A minimum of 45 of the 351 coronavirus-related deaths revealed on Wednesday were residents of long-term care centers.

Gov. Philip D. Murphy said that as soon as the risk of the pandemic passes, New Jersey should take a hard take a look at what failed.

“It’s pretty clear that a huge weak point in the system, and in truth, is long-lasting care centers,” he said.

Thirteen of the bodies found on Monday at the Andover facility were relocated to a refrigerated truck outside a medical facility in nearby Newton, Danielson stated. A funeral house had actually made plans to pick up the other four.

He said he was not completely amazed by the number of bodies found.

“I don’t understand if I’m surprised by any means,” he stated.