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Nurse seriously injured after she drove off top floor of Faulkner Hospital parking garage, officials say
Faulkner Hospital said the incident is under investigation but did not confirm whether the woman was an employee of the hospital.
A nurse who decided to sleep in her car while she was on call was seriously injured when she accidentally drove off the top floor of a parking garage at Brigham and Women’s Faulkner Hospital, officials said.
The incident happened in the early morning of May 17, according to Boston police. An officer patrolling the area saw paramedics treating the woman, a police report said.
Fire department officials on scene told the officer the woman had driven off the top floor of the garage. The officer saw a “heavily damaged” 2018 white Jeep Grand Cherokee on the ground with all its doors open and airbags deployed, according to the report.
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When he looked up, he saw that the top floor of the Faulkner Hospital parking garage had a section of railing missing. The same piece of railing was on the ground, according to the report.
The woman suffered multiple broken bones and was taken to a nearby hospital for treatment. She was in “stable but severe” condition and stayed in the hospital for several days, the report said.
The woman told police that she had worked her normal shift until about 5:30 p.m. the previous day, then went to go get dinner and returned to the hospital at about 7 p.m. She told police she was on call starting at 11 p.m., so decided to sleep in her car instead of going home, according to the report.
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She woke up at about 1 a.m. to move her vehicle because an overhead light was in her eyes, the report said. But she accidentally hit the gas pedal instead of the brakes, accelerating her car into the metal railing and off the top floor of the garage.
The Massachusetts Nursing Association (MNA) confirmed that the woman was a nurse and member of the group’s Faulkner Hospital bargaining unit. A MNA spokesperson told Boston.com that the union had reached out to the nurse but that she did not wish to speak to media.
A spokesperson for Faulkner Hospital said the incident is under investigation but did not confirm whether the woman was an employee of the hospital.
Nurses’ union: exhaustion and burnout are major issues
The incident came less than two weeks after the MNA released results of a survey that showed nurses are increasingly leaving their jobs due to reasons like burnout, exhaustion, and stress. Understaffing was the leading reason nurses said they left their jobs, according to the union.
The survey, which collected responses from more than 500 nurses in the state, also showed that 49 percent of respondents have seen an increase in the use of on-call to compensate for understaffing and 34 percent have seen an increase in mandatory overtime.
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Though officials have not released information about this nurse’s specific work schedule, studies have shown that long shifts, particularly at night, contribute to drowsy driving and may increase the risk of car accidents.
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