Hurrican Maria – Database of the Dead
Diane Alverio on September 17, 2018
Hurricane Maria's victims
Hundreds of families told us how their loved ones died after Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico. This database of stories is the most extensive record yet of who died and why.
Deaths in…
March and after (6)
Deaths caused by …
Causes directly related to the hurricane (73)
Damages caused by flood, landslides, etc. (12)
Lack of electricity (158)
Lack of food or water (24)
Lack of access to medical care (95)
Lack of access to communications (55)
René Rodolfo Acosta Vélez
Place of death: San Juan
Clinical cause of death: Stroke, not specified as hemorrhage or infarction
Wilfredo Lanausse Soto
Place of death: Guayama
Clinical cause of death: Other Causes
What happened: Don Tito was hospitalized during the hurricane. When he came back home and saw all the destruction caused by hurricane to his house, he had a heart attack. The area was flooded, his house was made with wood and zinc. The wind destroyed the ceiling. There was no electricity or water.
Source: Response to online survey, followed by interview with family
Ismael Inostroza Burgos
Place of death: Carolina
Clinical cause of death: Cerebrovascular diseases
Iluminada González
Place of death: Juana Díaz
What happened: After the hurricane she was taken from nursing home in Villalba to Tres Reyes, in Juana Díaz, because they didn't had resources to treat her. That's why she died in Juana Díaz. She was transferred without any document, like her medical record and information about the care she needed. The tube for intravenous feeding got broken, but she was not taken to gastroenterologist. There were landslides behind the nursing home. So there was no access to medical care.
Héctor Luis García
Place of death: Arecibo
Clinical cause of death: Septicemia
What happened: There was no transportation because Lares was destroyed. When they reached the hospital, the medical equipment was damaged. There were no drugs and the patient had a heart attack.
Source: Response to online survey
Emilia Monserrate Aneses De La Rosa
Place of death: Aguadilla
Clinical cause of death: Essential (primary hypertension and hypertensive renal disease
What happened: She was in a nursing home in Aguadilla. She got ill and was difficult to take her to the hospital because there was no diesel or gas. There were also no open hospitals in Aguadilla, so she was taken to San Germán. The day after arriving at the hospital, she died. On October 2 we received a phone call to be told that she was dead. They said that she died of a lung condition, but for me, her death was related to the hurricane because they could not take her from home to give her medical treatment and no hospitals were open in Aguadilla.
Link to this person:
María De Los Ángeles Álvarez
Place of death: Toa Alta
What happened: In November 2017, her mental health deteriorated rapidly. The darkness caused her deterioriation and she was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. In April I took her to a nursing home because she needed permanent supervision. On June 9, 2018, she had a heart attack and died. Before the hurricane she didn't have any health condition, just hypertension which was under control with medication.
Gerardo Rojas Cruz
Place of death: Comerío
Clinical cause of death: Diseases of heart
What happened: The incident happened six days after hurricane Maria. He was getting ready to report to work when he told me he couldn't breath. I immediately took him to the hospital but when we got there, his condition worsened and he died.
Faustino Báez Ramos
Clinical cause of death: Diabetes mellitus
What happened: After the hurricane he did not wake up. There was no way to take him to a hospital. The roads were blocked because of some landslides.
Flor De María Del Toro Pagán
Place of death: Ponce
What happened: The patient was at the intensive care unit where there was only a fan on a table that barely moved the air. To make matters worse, given the darkness caused by blackouts, the curtains on the windows were open, increasing the intense heat. She had no air conditioning and she was located near a window. She caught an infection as a result of the conditions in that unit.
Joaquín Solivan Ocasio
Place of death: Manatí
What happened: My husband was admitted to the hospital with a strong pain in the stomach the day after Hurricane Maria. When we reached the hospital everyone looked like zombies. They were attending to patients but thinking about their own problems. They took a CT and found the swollen liver and gallbladder. Also found low hemoglobin, low red and white blood cells, low platelets. The power generator was damaged several times and the medical tests expected immediately were not done until some weeks later. We stayed 25 days in the hospital. Two weeks after he died, some tests results arrived. My husband had cancer in the blood. A treatable disease became a death sentence for not having been treated with caution and interest.
Juan Antonio Medina Vázquez
Place of death: Yabucoa
What happened: He got depressed after the storm. A fallen tree destroyed half of the house. He didn't want help from anyone. In April, he still had no electricity and for that reason he was living in his car and slept there. The house was uninhabitable. That ongoing discomfort caused him anguish and depression. Two days before his death he felt bad but he did not go to the hospital. He died on Friday but nobody found him that day. On Sunday It was me who found him in the car.
Source: Interview with family
What happened: There was no electricity in the house. He woke up with an asthma attack. His condition was aggravated by trying to wake up his brother to turn the power generator on in order to use his breathing machine. Given the lack of electricity, the phone signal was poor. The 911 office failed to communicate with ambulances in San Lorenzo and sent us an ambulance from Juncos. They arrived when he was already dead.
What happened: She told me she couldn't breathe and then lost consciousness. We tried to take her to hospital in Concepción but the roads were blocked. When the ambulance arrived they told me that the power generator at the hospital in Guanica, in Concepcion, had collapsed When the ambulance arrived, she died.
Pedro Rafael Pagán Pérez
What happened: If only he had been given medical treatment or if he had been admitted to a a hospital. He was bleeding and it was not known why. No hospital admitted him because there was no room. A doctor went to his house and gave him serum. All this was a consequence of the lack of electricity and basic services, according to the nurses from the home.
Samuel Edgardo Rivera Santiago
What happened: My brother was diabetic, but he died because no ambulance came to give him medical treatment. He had no electricity or communications. He had vomiting and diarrhea and his condition was aggravated.
Saúl Pabey Martínez
Place of death: Peñuelas
Clinical cause of death: Accidents (unintentional injuries
What happened: A friend hired him to connect house to the electric line of a nearby neighborhood. Once my son climbed the ladder and lifted the machete he was electrocuted and fell.
Pedro Emilio Nieves Delgado
Place of death: Humacao
Clinical cause of death: Anemias
What happened: My dad had a percutaneous endoscopic gastrostomy (PEG) to be fed and also needed oxygen. He was fine until the electric system collapsed.
Carlos Gilberto Rivera Suárez
Place of death: Not collected
Clinical cause of death: Influenza and pneumonia
What happened: He got pneumonia in the shelter. He did not have it when he arrived. He caught pneumonia in less than a month. At the shelter, sometimes there was no electricity, no water, when it rained the water came in. My husband had ready recovered from a previous lung surgery. The doctor at the shelter said that my husband had a bad cold. A health officer checked my husband and said that he had something else. FEMA said I could file a claim his death expenses , but they have not given me anything. They ask for a updated death certificate saying his death was caused by the hurricane. No doctor wants to give me that.
Ruth Olmo Guevara
Place of death: Caguas
What happened: Lack of medicines after the hurricane. There were no doctors, no hospitals available. She used to take medication to keep her blood pressure under control.
José Abraham González Rodríguez
Place of death: Arroyo
What happened: He lost control of a car while driving after going to the movies and to a fair in Santa Isabel. His mother said that he took a route that was not usual and it seems that the hurry and lack of lighting made the car hit the curb.
Digna Pinto Gómez
Clinical cause of death: Malignant neoplasms
Pablo Burgos Amaro
What happened: There were no resources available at hospitals in order to track his medication.
Juana Burgos Del Moral
Place of death: Fajardo
What happened: The cause of the death was a sore on the toe. She was in a nursing home in Humacao and the doctor told me that I had to take her to a hospital. I called an ambulance and they told that there were no hospitals available. The doctor told me that he would give her treatment, but then called me to tell me that she needed to be hospitalized because of the severity of the sore. Hospital HIMA in Caguas was impossible, we took her to the Caribbean Medical Hospital. There the doctor told me an amputation was needed. Her condition improved with the treatment and the doctors even spoke about discharging her, but she died. My brother told me she was throwing up blood. It appears that antibiotic treatment caused her bleeding. The root cause of her death was that there was not a hospital available on time.
Jovina Abreu Pinto
What happened: We knew about her death two or three days later. Her body lasted two days there because there was no way to get to the nursing home. The police came to our house to tell us. Her death was certified by a doctor who used to go to the nursing home.
What happened: She was a mental patient. After hurricane Maria she got a severe depression and stopped taking medications. Given that there was no electricity at her home, she stopped monitoring her blood pressure and her breathing therapies. All this caused her a massive heart attack and her death.
Inés Cecilia Pagán Ramos
What happened: Her son went to visit his mother on Oct. 27. He was told that she had been taken to the hospital. After two hours in the emergency room, they found that her pulse was high (130-140bpm) and her pupils were dilated. The doctor decided to intubate her but said she could not do much. She was dehydrated and had not been feeding well. At 6 a.m., the son received a call telling him about her death. The son thinks that his mother got depressed after the hurricane as a consequence of the lack of services and being alone.
Marielly Fuentes Torres
Place of death: Naranjito
What happened: It happened on a local road where there were landslides caused by the hurricane. That day, the road had been cleaned, but there still was some debris from a landslide. She was heading to her parents' home for a niece's birthday. It had rained and the road was still filled with mud. The car skidded and fell into the abyss. She was with two children, who survived the accident.
Lorraine Montenegro
Clinical cause of death: Chronic lower respiratory diseases
What happened: She was in Puerto Rico on vacation. For several days, her son tried to get her out of Puerto Rico, but he could not. She had never been diagnosed with COPD and was in good condition. For two weeks, his son didn't know her whereabouts. He sent a friend to her house and this friend took a video of her. In the video she seemed a little dehydrated from lack of electricity and water and the troubles to get food. She came to the hospital on Sept. 30. The next day, her son received a call telling him she died.
Casiano Betancourt Morales
What happened: He was feeling that his blood pressure was low. He did not feel well as a consequence of the lack of services. All that struggle to get gas or look for things was difficult for him. On Sept. 30, he went to his cardiologist. He was admitted to the cardiovascular unit. He had tachycardia and the doctors decided to transfer him to the intensive care unit. He died in the hospital.
Iris Migdalia Meléndez Figueroa
Place of death: Trujillo Alto
What happened: She was diagnosed with cancer. During the week of the hurricane, she was hospitalized at the Oncological Hospital. She was discharged because there was no electricity or water, but they did not give her medication or oxygen. A week later, she was taken to the hospital because her health worsened. At home there was no electricity either. She was in poor condition and dehydrated. She only received one chemotherapy session. The hospital still had no water or other resources. She received a second chemotherapy session and was discharged on Saturday. She died on a Wednesday night.
María Del Carmen Pagán Cintrón
Place of death: Bayamón
What happened: She had a lung condition which was aggravated by the lack of a proper equipment after the hurricane.
Francisco Rivera Rodríguez
Place of death: Hatillo
What happened: Missed dialysis therapies due to blackout.
Doroteo Díaz Rodríguez
What happened: Daddy was suffering from pulmonary arterial hypertension. Two days after hurricane, he felt ill. He was hospitalized about a month and had surgery to remove his spleen. He was discharged and in the place where he lived there was no electricity or water. He stayed only one day in the house, because the next day he got sick. We tried to take him to an emergency facility opened in Humacao, but they told us we needed to take him back to the hospital where the surgery had been done because his wound had an infection. He spent two weeks in hospital until he died.
Carmen García
What happened: She had many relapses. He doctor told in the US told us to take her to Puerto Rico because she was already very weak.
Miguel Ángel Serrano Octubre
Place of death: Naguabo
What happened: He could not connect to his oxygen concentrator because he had no electricity and could not buy a generator. His daughter used to provide him electricity at night. But the day he died, his daughter's power generator got damaged. He needed to be connected to oxygen for some hours a day. His wife was at home. He got dizzy because he couldn't breathe. Given that there were no electricity, it was not possible to use the mechanical ventilation. An ambulance was called but he died.
Elías López García
What happened: He was very depressed because of the lack of electricity. He got sick and was taken in the ambulance. He could not breathe. My kids were the ones who went with him to the hospital. My neighbors stayed here with me. (The informant could not finish, began to mourn and asked to end the call).
María Victoria Sánchez De Jesús
What happened: With no electricity, she suffocated. I turned the power generator on to give her respiratory therapy, but it was too late.
Kenny Huertas González
Place of death: San Lorenzo
What happened: He was helping some neighbors to remove the debris after the hurricane. He fell and fractured some bones. He had two surgeries. He was hospitalized almost a week. He had convulsions. The paramedics arrived. He lost his ability to move and then died.
Guillermo Alfonso Del Pozo Villalón
Clinical cause of death: Alzheimers disease
What happened: My dad was bedridden. He had housekeeper and air conditioning seven days a week. He had urinary tract infection. The day of the hurricane, he was hospitalized at Hospital San Pablo in Bayamon. He was fine. The hospital discharged him. He came back home, where we didn't have power generator. There was no communication, either. There were no services at all. That was a torture, a struggle. His health condition started to deteriorate. He got dehydrated. His pillow and his bed were flooded with his own sweat. It lasted 10 days at home. I felt helpless. If we had had air conditioning …
Míriam González Díaz
Place of death: Gurabo
What happened: Eight months before the storm, the patient was diagnosed with ALS syndrome. Assisted feeding needed. After Hurricane Maria, the feeding machine didn't work because of the lack of electricity.
Antonia Elizabeth Colón Salgado
What happened: She stopped smoking over 16 years ago. Many of her health problems were caused by respiratory condition and her quality of life. She went to the hospital with pneumonia. The day before the hurricane she was hospitalized, but doctors told her,
Teófilo David Rodríguez Díaz
What happened: Mr. Rodriguez received psychiatric treatment because of his alcoholism. He even was taken to court for compulsory help because of his addiction. Given the long waiting for the hearings at court, he continued to drink alcohol at the same time he was taking medication. He was taken three times to hospital to treat his condition. He also threatened to kill himself. He was not given the right help and took his own life.
Ana Iris Laboy Solís
What happened: Lack of energy caused her anxiety and exacerbated phobias she already had. In addition, she couldn't sleep as she needed a fan to breathe easily. As I said, this forced her to leave to the U.S, where she died. She got depression and everything. She left Puerto Rico in December to go to the U.S.
Guillermo Efraín Pérez Pérez
What happened: The Medical Center in Mayagüez was not working properly. From the hospital in San Germán, he was transferred to Rio Piedras Medical Center. A surgery couldn't be done because there was no electricity, no running water. There was nothing. I took him in an ambulance to San Germán and he died on the way.
Graciela Sánchez Beltrán
What happened: She was removed from a nursing home that closed because of no supplies and electricity. We did not have enough medication and had no communication with her doctor. Another doctor made medication changes. After several weeks, her Alzheimer's, hyperthyroidism, anxiety and insomnia conditions worsened. She lost weight due to a change in food because of lack of electricity and running water. She needed a liquid diet that we couldn't provide because we didn't have an electric food processor. She needed air conditioning at night and daytime and the heat and the mosquitoes significantly affected her. She died in January from cardiorespiratory arrest.
Dimas Nigaglioni Ortega
What happened: The person suffered Alzheimer's disease and was feeling desperate for not having electricity. He suffered respiratory arrest but was not treated on time because of the lack of electricity. There were complications with his health care: the heat, no electricity, formation of bedsores, diabetes. He was already bedridden without proper ventilation. He did not have a power generator or any of those things.
Elsa Gutiérrez Torres
Place of death: San Germán
What happened: My mother had several health conditions, including heart problems and dementia due to poor kidney function. Without water or electricity, and ambulances did not arrive, and everything was complicated until it broke down and her lungs stopped working. Lack of communication and no ambulances. She could not walk. It was chaos.
Joaquín Rivera Santos
What happened: Death caused by the lack of electricity and dialysis treatments. He struggled a lot just to receive his treatments. The hours of his dialysis therapy were reduced. He increased the fluid intake because of the heat and simultaneously the accumulation of fluid contributed to his death.
Raúl Díaz Santiago
What happened: Asthmatic. Constantly dealing with the power generator and diesel worsened his condition. Not having basic services, like running water, it was more difficult to take care of his own health condition.
Juan Gabriel Valentín Fuentes
Place of death: San Sebastián
What happened: Hurricane Maria brought down a huge tree. He was cutting the tree and one its branches fell on him and killed him. The very tip of the branch went into his heart. We tried to help him but could not do it.
Robert Rodríguez Iglesias
What happened: He was a cancer patient. There was no electricity and he missed six chemotherapy sessions. The lack of electricity strongly impacted his quality of life. He turned on the air conditioning every day because he said he felt like he was burning. I saw him suffer a lot. His diet was affected too. He did not have good nutrition. Also the stress that came from that situation. And he didn't use the sleep apnea machine.
Pedro Ismael Carrión Fernández
Place of death: Dorado
What happened: He lived with my mom. She realized one night that his temperature was low. She called an ambulance and she was told that he was already dead. He was a diabetic patient. He had a heart surgery. He had high blood pressure. We do not know if he had a kidney failure. But his health condition was deteriorated by hurricane, as a consequence of blackouts and not having air conditioning. The interruption of the dialysis sessions, we believe, greatly contributed to his death.
Luis Manuel Vázquez Rodríguez
What happened: It was apparently a heart attack, but no autopsy was performed. He was found inside his bathroom. Neighbors said he needed insulin. Every time he went to buy insulin, the drugstores were closed or the lines for buying were endless. The communications were also interrupted and he couldn't call the emergency service. The roads were damaged and there were no gas. Everything was chaos. There was no access to medicines. It is evident that his death was a hurricane-related death. I imagine that his condition mixed with stress was not a good combination.
Ana Luz Díaz Marcano
What happened: My mom's house was flooded with water because of heavy rains. My mom's house is close to a road. All the water from the road got into the house. That was dirty water, dirty everything. She tried to to sweep and take the water out of the house. That's why we understand that her death is related to the hurricane. She did not want to leave her home, where she had no electricity or running water. Finally she came to my house. I realized she suddenly had high fever. We went to the hospital. They did some tests and found that she had pneumonia and a urinary tract infection. She had a respiratory arrest and they tried to use a breathing machine but she had no vital signs. She had type 2 diabetes.
Ramón Ruiz Romero
What happened: He was alone during the hurricane, holding a door and trying to avoid winds. He was so frightened that two days later he was admitted to a hospital. He was diagnosed with cardiac function decreased to 10 percent. They put him on a pacemaker with a defibrillator. He died on Thanksgiving Day 2017. He thought the hurricane was going to knock down the door. A lot of water came in the house. He suffered a lot of stress. Because of the stress and anxiety of the hurricane he began to feel bad.
Ana Elba Cuevas Velázquez
What happened: A tree fell on her house. She had a heart attack caused by the scare. She was feeling very depressed. She used to come from her house to a house right next to her door. In the morning of that day she went to take a shower but I imagine she felt bad, seeing the damage caused by the fallen tree and her heart failed. She sat on the dining room table and died there, sitting at the table.
Adelaida Machuca Rivera
What happened: My grandmother needed permanent oxygen therapy, but there was no oxygen available. She had heart failure earlier in the year. But she was stable and her personal nurse was taking care of her. She had a portable oxygen machine, which needed electricity. After the hurricane, we didn't have electricity. She could not stay at home. We took her to a hospital, but it took three or four days because there was no communication. Originally, the hospital did not want to admit her because she was stable. But her house was flooded and had no electricity. In the hospital her condition deteriorated.
Alodia Aguayo Pastor
What happened: Although her body was dying, I believe that Hurricane Maria aggravated her health condition. The lack of air conditioning caused ulcers and skin conditions that eventually accelerated the degradation of her body. She still had energy and could move herself. It was hot. She was bedridden. The ulcers appeared on the feet and lower back. She got better. We took her home, where she had a power generator. But she was already weak. She was probably going to die soon, but not so fast.
Octavio Hamílcar Díaz Negrón
What happened: Diabetic patient with high blood pressure. The patient had a dental abscess caused by untreated tooth decay. There were no dentists available. After the hurricane, he broke a tooth. Eventually, a dental abscess appeared. He was taking antibiotics. He basically died for lack of medical services. He arrived at the hospital the same day he died. His wife took him to the hospital because he was having problems breathing and the nebulizer did not settle the problem. Just as they were about to transfer him to a hospital in San Juan, he died.
Quintín Vidal Rolon
Place of death: Cayey
Juan Dolores Figueroa Cruz
What happened: We're still waiting for the forensic report. What we know is that he was using an oil lamp that started a fire on the house. He couldn't go out and was burned. Because there was no light at night, he locked himself in the house early. He lit a lamp (a gas lamp with a wick). The lamp fell over or he fell asleep and then the fire occurred. That's what we supposed because it is still under investigation. We do not have a death certificate with the cause of death. We cannot get help from FEMA until we have it. We have a certificate without cause.
Natalio Ramón Rodríguez Lebrón
Place of death: Maunabo
What happened: Respiratory arrest after a power generator stopped working at 1 a.m., interrupting oxygen therapy to treat sleep apnea.
Jorge Luis Oliveras Reyes
What happened: His cancer treatment was interrupted. His medical office was closed. It was quite difficult. He needed special treatment. After Hurricane Maria, he had too many problems treating his disease. I looked after him three months. His hemoglobin levels began to lower and he was admitted several times to the hospital. In December, doctors told me there was not much to do. He also needed an oxygen machine with batteries. Those batteries were rechargeable _ you can imagine it was difficult to recharge them.
Pedro Vargas Méndez
What happened: The accumulation of water and waste allowed many bacteria to grow.
Mildred González Irizarry
Place of death: Mayagüez
What happened: Lack of electricity, medicine and communication.
Eladio Santiago Colón
What happened: My grandfather needed dialysis. He also suffered a lung condition. As a result of the hurricane, he didn't have proper dialysis therapies. The lack of electricity aggravated his breathing condition because he didn't use the oxygen machine or the air conditioning. Lack of electricity, dialysis, insulin, air.
Secundino Rivera Román
What happened: My father had a respiratory arrest. After the hurricane he couldn't use his mechanical ventilation, the air conditioning or the air mattress he needed to treat his bedsores. He also needed special medical treatment for his sores.
Miguel Ángel Sosa Villa
What happened: The patient was bedridden with an open wound due to a fistula. Given the open wound, the patient needed an adjustable bed and air mattress. In addition, the doctor prescribed permanent air conditioning due to the open wound, which needed to be treated frequently. There was not enough water to clean the patient as frequently as recommended. All this triggered an infection that caused the death by a septicemic shock. In addition, the hospital in Aguadilla was not working at 100 percent and didn't have air conditioning at its intensive care unit.
Diana Iris Vázquez Fuentes
What happened: The patient couldn't use a mechanical ventilation and sleep apnea machine.
Pedro Antonio Colón Rivera
What happened: The emergency room didn't have staff enough for attending so many sick people. My dad was admitted at the emergency room with a heart attack. But no medical test was done for five hours. Then he had another heart attack at 2 p.m. He had arrived to the hospital at 10 a.m. but no one did what the doctor said.
Miguel Ángel Rodríguez Oyola
What happened: I think the lack of energy and health care. A nurse used to take care of him. He was quadriplegic. She thinks he was tired. He didn't have a power generator. After the hurricane, he ate uncooled food because there was no electricity. He didn't have the things he needed. Before the hurricane, he was well, given his condition.
Ayesha Ydalith Arroyo Valentín
What happened: Autopsy report not yet released. The case is still open. She was diabetic patient since she was 6 years old. They were told that she died by natural cause. But she diidn't have electirity or water. She was concerned about that.
Ignacio Ignacio Vázquez Borges
What happened: Cancer patient .When hurricane Irma hit, he had already performed some medical tests. When he hurricane Maria hit he was supposed to get his tests results, but the laboratories and medical offices were closed. His oncologist contacted the laboratory to obtain the results because he was about the chemotherapy, But the tests results lasted to arrive. After hurricane Maria, he was hospitalized for a month in San Pablo Bayamon hospital, the only one that was available. He had some probles at breathing. They performed a tracheotomy so he could breathe, while chemotherapy drugs arrive. After four weeks finally the drugs arrived. He was transferred to the Cancer Hospital of San Juan. He got chemotherapy and was discharged. The next day they have to take him again and remains hospitalized until he dies three weeks later.
Wanda Wanda Rivas Ocasio
What happened: Her brother found her dead before November, sitting in a chair inside her trailer.
Rafaela Hernández Lozada
Clinical cause of death: Complications of medical and surgical care
What happened: The power supply was not working as a consequence of the lack of electricity. It was difficult to do all the procedures manually. The air conditioning did not work for the same reason. Having no electricity, they could not turn on the feeding machine and feeding the patient manually was very difficult. There was no way to refrigerate food, no water either. The entire body was compromised and collapsed.
Cándida Negrón León
What happened: In our community we were allowed to plug her medical equipment during the day to the building's power generator. At night, she was not allowed to connect her equipment. Her health condition worsened to the point she could not breathe properly. On Oct. 20, she was admitted to a hospital with pneumonia and CO2 retention. She was already diagnosed with some chronic conditions and needed breathing therapy. In addition, she had CO2 retention and needed BiPAP therapy every night. Two weeks later, she moved to my house. Her condition deteriorated.
Antonio José Dávila Motta
What happened: It happened on a farm that was destroyed by the hurricane. He almost finished his work cleaning the debris up and cutting pine trees. He was supposed to work three more days on that farm that was destroyed by the hurricane. His boss wanted him to knock down all the pine trees. One of pine tree fell down and hit his chest. While he fell to the ground, he fractured his skull. His ear was also hurt. I think he died from a hurricane-related death because he would not have died if he have didn't have to work on the farm after the hurricane. I want his death to be accounted, thanks.
Gilberto López Mejías
Place of death: Vega Baja
What happened: Because of pulmonary disease, Jaime occasionally needed oxygen. On the fourth day after the hurricane, he started missing oxygen and could not receive oxygen because of lack of electricity or health care due to loss of communications and difficult access to the house. Jaime died of asphyxiation.
Nathan Javier Rodríguez Vázquez
Clinical cause of death: Certain conditions originating in the perinatal period
What happened: My baby was born premature at 29 weeks on July 26, 2017. He had recovered satisfactorily and even on Friday after the hurricane, he no longer needed the breathing machine. Several days later he needed again the breathing machine, given that there was so much moisture. He began to have secretions in his right lung. Every day he needed more and more oxygen therapy. On Oct. 2, his right lung had collapsed. On Oct. 4, my baby no longer resisted and died. He was recovered, but after the hurricane, the hospital didn't have electricity, allowing fungus to grow and affecting my baby's lungs.
Felipe Figueroa Rosa
What happened: My father was diagnosed with sleep apnea and needed a breathing machine. That day he woke up in the middle of the night because he could not breathe. We tried to connect the breathing machine to our neighbor's power generator but it was too late. We called 911 three times. The ambulance never arrived. He had slept several days without his breathing machine because he didn't have a power generator. He died because of the lack of the electricity.
Roberto Ramos Colón
What happened: He needed mechanical ventilation, but couldn't use it because of the blackout. We couldn't buy gas. We didn't have money.
Ernesto Alfredo Curiel Barreras
What happened: The power generator at his building collapsed and the elevators were not working. His insulin had to be refrigerated at the administrative offices of the building. He needed to go up and down 10 floors using the stairs even though he had diabetes and only 15 percent of his heart function. He was admitted to a hospital twice in October. The first time, he was suffering dehydration. The second time, he had a syncope with respiratory and kidney conditions that caused his death. A humanitarian flight to the United States was expected but never done. He also suffered from asthma and pneumonia.
Aurea Encarnacion Fernández
What happened: A day after the hurricane my mom fell and broke her hip. Surgery was not possible until nine days later. She caught a bacterial infection in the wound and died from sepis. She was transferred to a hospital in Hato Rey, after trying to transfer her to other hospitals. During the surgery we were told that she could catch bacteria because the operating room could be not completely disinfected. And so, she caught bacteria. All her organs stopped working. Eventually she had a respiratory arrest.
Blanca Yris García Ramírez
What happened: Massive stroke caused by high blood pressure and a rise in sugar levels. Health condition aggravated by concerns, uncertanty and lack of basis services (power, water, communications) after hurricane. Before the stroke, this person showed a lot of anxiety. There was poor access to 911, they took so much time to get services, hospitals were closed after the stroke.
Astrid Milagros Ojeda Ojeda
What happened: She didn't have electricity.
Eloína Dolores Collar Vázquez
What happened: Cancer patietnt. Admitted at a hospital for influenza and diarrhea as a side effect of chemotherapy (colon cancer). Health condition aggravated by blackouts, the use of power generator at neighbor's home and debris in front of the house for more than four months.
Julia Muñoz Román
Place of death: Río Grande
What happened: My mother needed oxygen seven days a week. Our power generator got damaged. There was no way to get a power generator or some of its pieces. She used to set the oxygen at level 10 because she had lung cancer. Given that there was an oxygen shortage, I was told to lower my mom's level to 2 or 4 because it was not possible to be supplied. … I had no communication with the hospice or nurses, there was no road access. I told them about the oxygen and the generator. … The power generator was not working and Iwas told that the oxygen was rationed because Puerto Rico was running out of oxygen. I was told that I should lower my mom's level to 2 or 3 or would have nothing. The nurse was calling but she was also employed by them [hospice] and did not come…. We felt emotionally affected while seeing our mom running out of air, the civil defense could not help us. She struggled three in agony and then died, she died in my hands.
Irma Valentín Cordero
What happened: The patient went seven days after the hurricane without receiving dialysis therapy. This situation aggravated his health condition. After the hurricane there were a lot of deaths at the regional hospital in Manati. Every time a blackout happened, several people died.
José Luis Román Meléndez
What happened: With no support from the hospice after the hurricane, no running water or electricity, it became more difficult to take care of my father's hygiene and diet. I think he was concerned about the shortage of resources and he did not want to eat. I saw him very worried and sad. He had Parkinson's desease that decreased his hability to move and speak. After the hurricane he had a huge emotional impact. I was in Hato Rey starting a temporary job in a call center when my brother told me that daddy had died. … Beyond the effects of Hurricane Maria, I would say that the medical care was poor. He had hospice services but after the hurricane the hospice services were temporarily interrupted … it was a heavy burden to my mom.
Ramona Enid González Muñoz
What happened: Since there was no electricity, she could not use some of the medical equipment she needed, like oxygen machine, air condionioning and air mattress. Her bedsores got worse because of the heat. She couldn't breathe properly. Her health condition deteriorated continously leading to her death.
José Antonio Colón López
What happened: Missed dialysis therapy caused by lack of electricity. Depressive disorder at home caused by the blackout. He needed dialysis, but after hurricane he was given fewer hours of dialysis. I believe his body was poisoned because the lack of dialysis and all that contributed to what happened. It was because of that.
Orlando López Martínez
What happened: Inadequate medical treatment at hospital. Complications of dialysis therapy. He needed to travel to Aguadilla to receive dialysis therapy, but the therapy lasted only two hours. He was already very sick, but his condition worsened. … I heard that he had a rerespiratory arrest and he was taken to the clinic, the day after the doctor told him that he would be discharged. He didn't agree and was upset yelling that if he would die. The day after, he had a respiratory arrest and died while connected to a dialysis machine.
Sara Ivette Rivera Betancourt
What happened: Sara was living in a nursing home where Hurricane Maria caused damage. We transferred her to another nursing home. Her treatment for high blood pressure and diabetes was interrupted during that time. When she came back to her original nursing home, things were out of control, causing her a heart attack. We had to move her to another place and at that time her doctor, that was in Cayey, didn't see her. She was a diabetic patient and had high blood pressure. As a consequence of the hurricane devastation, she fell in depression. There was no electricity only a power generator.
Rosaura Roque Santiago
Place of death: Guaynabo
What happened: She was bedridden and didn't have air conditioning. It was even difficult to get oxygen. Given the blackouts after the hurricane, she couldn't have air conditioning, the air mattress or the mechanical ventilation anymore. The air mattress was constanly deflating and new bedsores appeared. The hurricane's effects aggravated her condition and she didin't even want to eat, that's why doctors introduced a percutaneous endoscopic gastrostomy, but she didn't tolerate it. She was in hospice care.
Manuel Lorenzo González
What happened: He was a patient with Alzheimer's disease, among other health conditions. He felt hopeless because not not having running water or electricity and did not understand the situation that was happening at the time. Hopelessness led his blood pressure to rise, causing a stroke in his way to the hospital.
Modesta Isabel Arámburu Morales
What happened: Blackouts caused uncomfortable conditions for her. She was concerned after the hurricane, and one time she said 'I know all the sacrifice you're making.' Getting a funeral home was a terrible task. Police helped us looking for a funeral home that was working. Relatives needed to wait one month for her ashes.
Carmen María Lozada Torres
What happened: My grandmother suffered from Alzheimer's disease and this condition led to breathing problems. She needed breathing machine and oxygen therapy. After Hurricane María and the lack of electricity, her condition worsened. … We made some arrangements to buy a power generator on the U.S. mainland, but the generator arrived after she died. Having no oxygen and no electricity, she had respiratory arrest at home and died in her way to hospital.
Ángel Luis Dávila Rodríguez
Place of death: Las Piedras
Clinical cause of death: Intentional self-harm (suicide
What happened: After the hurricane passed he started feeling depressed. He had no job, had said he wanted to escape the problems, but he did not know how to face it.
Felinio Castro Lugo
What happened: Due to the lack of electricity and/or damage to various medical institutions, he could not receive dialysis. This caused complications that ultimately led to the death. The patient worsened by not receiving dialysis as a result of the storm. The deterioration was very evident from not having the medical service.
Víctor Hernández Serra
What happened: He woke up in the middle of the night and couldn't see properly because of the blackout, then he slipped, fell down on the ground and the hit broke his skull. Don Victor could not be treated at a hospital in Coamo or the hospital in San Lucas. Whe he arrived to the hospital in San Cristobal, there were too many people and there was no capacity to treate him. They gave him painkillers until he died.
José Luis Morales Septiembre
What happened: He needed permanent oxygen therapy. Blackout forced to interrupt oxygen therapy. The therapy was provided only twice a day using a local power generator. I had a power generator and used to turn it on from 1.00 pm to 4:00 pm and then turned it on again from 10:00 pm to 5:00 am.
Patricia Nicole Figueroa Colón
What happened: She was crossing the road and the driver did not see her because of the lack of lighting and did not stop because the traffic lights didn't work. … The impact was fatal. She was not taken to a hospital. She died on the scene.
Francisco Manuel González Ortega
What happened: Due to lack of electricity, the deceased fell down while going to the bathroom in the middle of darkness. He tripped over, fell and broke his neck on the toilet. He died instantly.
Florencia Rosado Rodríguez
What happened: The patient was receiving CPR when the electric system failed. When the power was restored, the patient couldn't be revived, and died. She had been admitted to hospital because of a stroke two days before the hurricane and there she was connected for the first time to a breathing machine.
Olga Idalia Vega Ramos
Place of death: Jayuya
Clinical cause of death:
What happened: She fell in the bathroom and that caused a stroke. The accident happened on day 15. She arrvied at the hospital still conscious. When we came to the hospital to see her, she was already intubated. Two days later she was pronounced dead. … She fell from the toilet and her head hit with a the wall.
José Santiago Meléndez Ramírez
What happened: A change of diet, dehydration, anxiety and extreme heat. We moved to another apartment with electricity but it was too late. He already had mesothelioma, diagnosed in March 2015. Not having proper temperature and adequate food aggravated his condition. It was a nightmare. He had to eat what appeared.The food he used to eat, vegetables, were not available. We had water but no electricity. It was a continuous stress. I had to took him to another apartment. Hurricane Maria did not kill him but sped up his condition.
Ángel Gabriel Lozada Otero
Clinical cause of death: Nephritis, nephrotic syndrome and nephrosis
What happened: My dad was hospitalized and intubated in Manati Medical Center when the power generator collapsed. He was transferred to Mayagüez in an ambulance. This transfer aggravated his health condition. …After Hurricane Maria, we didn't have electricity and hospitals worked with power generators. The power generator of Manati collapsed while he was in intensive care and intubated. The doctors called me to transfer him from the emergency to Puero Rico Medical Center. But that day the power generator there collapsed, too. Then he was transferred to Mayaguez in a two hours ride because there was no air ambulance. There my daddy worsenend. In Mayaguez nothing happened, I asked to transfer him back to Manati where his doctor was working. He died a day later. My family does not rule out that the death was caused by renal failure and respiratory arrest but he was not admitted to hospital with kidney failure.
Encarnación Bayron Soto
What happened: Since there was no electricity at the nursing home, there was no air conditioning, causing a sore on her back to worsen. The massage mattress she needed to improve the blood circulation was not working either after the hurricane. She caught a blood infection at the hospital caused by the sore. After two weeks the patient died at Doctor's Hospital.
Silvia Yolanda Correa Mejías
What happened: At the nursing home they only used to turn the power generator on two or three times a day, in spite of that some patients needed a stable and controlled temperature…. Her condition was stable. But after Hurricane Maria, the staff at the nursing home only used to turn the power generator on four hours at night. They used to turn a fan on in front of an each bedridden patients. so she caught pneumonia. But doctors wrote down several causes in the certificate of death. .. She died because the nursing home did not handle properly the situation. They should have had an alternate generator and had to spend the fuel needed. In total three people died in that facility. Each person has the their time to die, but it would not have been my mom's if she had had proper care. Mismanagement precipitated events.
Cruz Awilda Rosario Santos
What happened: After Hurricane Maria hit we didn't have electricity for a month. After 15 days, my mommy started to wash clothes. She was a diabetic patient, had peripheral neuropathy and she couldn't feel her feet. After a nail accidentally stuck in her foot we took her to the hospital. She was admitted to intensive care unit and then died. She stayed hospitalized for a week.
Santos Avilés Torres
What happened: She lost her home. At my house she had no running water or electricity She needed therapies twice a day and many other treatments for her health condition. She was 89, had her diabetes under control and was stable. But she got depressed after losing her home after hurricane Maria. She did not want to eat. Every day she used to asked me about her house. We told her the truth, we didn't lie. After the hurricane she stayed in bed. She was consumed. … At the nursing home, she had a power generator and care but she got depressed. The doctor said she was in a severe depression. I wanted to take her back home once I again had electricity and water, but she died.
Monserrate Chaparro Pérez
Place of death: Aguada
What happened: She was a patient witth emphysema. Since there was no electricity, it was neccesary to use a power generator to provide her therapy four times a day. But the generator was overcharged. She also needed drugs and oxygen concentrator. All this things had a high cost. Ther was no electricity or water and her condition worsened. The toxic gases from the generator made her made more and more difficult to breathe. Sometimes it was very difficult to get medicines and keep it the insulin refrigerated. Sometimes we had to throw out some insulin because the lack of electricity.
Carlos Antonio Torres Otero
What happened: Sleep apnea aggravated by hurricane effects.
Carlos Rafael Rivera Rivera
What happened: Well, I think he died because of the hurricane crisis. He was not a sick person, had no problems, was not diabetic. He was waiting for a cardiovascular test at the hospital, becacuse he had some kind of discomfort in the chest and ran out of breath. The appointment could not be performed due to the hurricane; . While waiting for the new appointment, he had the heart attack while cutting a tree to improve access.
Francisco Berrios Berrios
What happened: An indirect death caused by conditions created by the hurricane. I'd say it was not directly, but indirectly, because outside his home a hillside collapsed and a lot of dust got inside the house. He was already feeling bad before the hurricane, with breathing difficulties. He was treated before the hurricane. Still, he decided to stay home. He was hospitalized after we insisted on it and after five days, he died… I think his death was related to the hurricane becasue the dust affected him.
Ramón Ruiz Maldonado
What happened: Didn't have adequate health care treatment. He died from a respiratory arrest. His brother told him that he died because of the hurricane. Before the hurricane, he had respiratory failure due to phlegm retention.
Rafael Villegas Jiménez
Clinical cause of death: Pneumonitis due to solids and liquids
What happened: He was in a psychiatric institution where he got a lung infection caused by some bacteria and fungus that appeared as a consequence of the blackouts that interrupted the air conditioning. Then he was admitted at Hospital Universitario, where he stayed intubated during a week. He recovered and even he didn't need the mechanical ventilation anymore, but days later his relatives were told he died. The physician told that after recovering, he caught a fungal infection in the blood from a hypodermic needle infected as a consequence of blackouts and that was the cause of his death. … According to the doctor, the patient had already recovered from pneumonia, and had the tubes removed. She explained that while an intravenous medication was administred to him, there was a fungal contamination (syringe and / or medication), so the fungus was inoculated directly into the blood, leading this into a sepsis. The doctor said that the contamination was casused by the instability of the electricity.
Elba Isabel González Aponte
What happened: Elba used an oxygen machine and due to the lack of electricity she began coughing blood. There was no communication. Someone went to the police station for help. Police said there was no way to communicate with the ambulance. When they returned to the house she had died. My dad had to pay a private doctor to certifie her death, so that we could move her body to the funeral home. She was using a breathing machine and was fed through the stomach. After the hurricane, she stayed at her house without power and got ill. Then she had a respiratory arrest. Police advised us to come to see her. I think she died due to lack of electricity because she couldn't use her oxygen machine.
Carmen Teresa Rosado Rodríguez
What happened: She was in a shelter since she was living in a wooden house without an electric generator.Given her health condition, she needed to be connected to oxygen and a gastrostomy tube. A blackout affected the shelter and the institution lost communication. She died because she couldn't stay connected to the oxygen and feeding tube.
Josefa Chaves Reverol
What happened: My grandmother was not wearing clothes because of the heat. She was hospitalized since Hurricane Irma. There she had a good medical treatment, in spite the chaotic environment caused by the blackout. Maybe it was time for her to die. But the situation of the country aggravated her own. What I experienced there (in the hospital) made me feel a deep pain.
Cerelda Rodríguez Olmeda
Place of death: Hormigueros
What happened: I think it was a combination. I saw her the day before and she was fine. She lived with my brother who always left her some food when he went to work. When he returned, he found her dead. I believe stress, lack of medical care, her schedules were changed and we don't know if she had her insulin at the right time.
Margarita Luna Luna
What happened: A month after being admitted to hospital with cellulitis, a sepsis caused her death. She arrived at the hospital three days after hurricane with a swollen knee caused by cellulitis. She spent a month in hospital and really did not receive medical attention. Doctors were doing other things and did not treat her. Medical care was negligent. She arrived safely at the hospital, but did not get proper attention.
Ángela Julia Matías Cure
What happened: Missing therapies because of lack of electricity.
Edwin Adorno Pantoja
Place of death: Vega Alta
What happened: Edwin didn't have electricity since Hurricane Irma. His wife (my mother) had several health conditions and needed oxygen, CPAP and breathing machine to live. My dad kept alternating two generators to keep my mom comfortable. Around January 14, she caught asthmatic bronchitis caused by gases from the power generators. The stress caused by all this situation led her to an embolism and die.
Rizell Hanna Mutt Ortiz
What happened: As a consequence of the lack of electricity she didn't have respiratory support. She was hospitalized because she had a kidney condition. After the hurricane, the hospital didn't have electricity and she needed electricity for her mechanical ventilation. Patients were moved to the basement of the building where there were power generators, but there was still some failures. They spent eight days without being able to communicate with the hospital. Her body lasted eight days in the morgue and no funeral could be done. She was cremated.
Alejandro González Vázquez
What happened: As a result of the social crisis created by the effects of Hurricane Maria, Alejandro's mental illness aggravated to the point of threatening his own life. He had gone to the United States two months before the hurricane. He decided to return to Puerto Rico because he knew nothing of his family and wanted to help after hurricane. After coming back to the island, he spent two weeks without taking his medications. The night he was supposed to return to the United States, he committed suicide. I think he was very affected by everything he saw here after the hurricane.
Jorge Félix Rodríguez Dávila
Carmen Cuevas Ruiz
What happened: Given she was beddriden, she developed an ulcer and after the hurricane, without air conditioning, her condition worsened (and was affected by bacteria). On November 8 she was hospitalized and had surgery. The doctor told me she need to take antibiotic for more than 50 days. She was discharged but the conditions at home were not the best because there was no running water or electricity. That's why I took her the old age home. She died on December 13.
Ferdinand Anastacio Rosas Fernández
What happened: My dad was greatly distressed to see Puerto Rico destroyed. He became depressed. Daddy went into depression. When he left my house after the hurricane and saw the wreckage, he said it seemed like the war in Korea. He started to cry. And he said,
Carlos Manuel Pagán Otero
What happened: Dialysis patient who suffered a cardiac arrest during the hurricane. He was not transferred to a hospital because a fallen pole blocked the way. Finally the patient was transferred to the hospital several days later, after five days with heart failure.
Salustiano Bolirin Almedina
What happened: There was no electricity in all Cayey. He felt sick and was took to Mennonite hospital, which was working with a power generator. Once there he was evaluated and thay said that all was good. He was discharged and coming back home, he left the car and died. … The granddaughters went back to the Mennonite Hospital, where the doctor on duty who had seen Salustiano had already left. The doctor who was on duty at that time certified the death as
Juan Ramón Davis Herrera
What happened: Depression is very common among the elderly. They stop eating and drink water when they don't have a way to get it.
Félix Juan Toro Jiménez
What happened: He committed suicide after being depressed because of the loss of his home, denied assistance from FEMA, and the lack of electricity over the last four months.
Cecilio Rivera Maldonado
What happened: Discharged on December 18 , but could not return home due to lack of electricity. The Hospital Universitario did not allow to transfer the patient to the Hospital Cardiovascular. We were forbidden to continue bringing him food help with his bedsore even when nurses could not do it. It was a horror. He developed such serious injuries that his heel bone was exposed. One tendon of his right foot was also exposed; back bone, exposed. Indescribable. Unspeakable. He really wanted lo live. We were told that he had lived his life, that we had to accept the law of life, as if the elderly ones were not entitled to live.As if they were dispensable. Unspeakable.
Víctor Hernández Vicens
What happened: He fell down while cutting a tree damaged by the hurricane. Cause of death indirectly related to hurricane.
Juan González Mercado
Place of death: Moca
What happened: He was a patient with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). He needed theraphy several times a day. Having no electricity, he could not take their therapies and we, his family, did our best to give him therapies. But he could not walk properly so he needed all the resources at home. He died due to lack of air while asking to go to the bathroom. The lack of electricity impeded that he could meet all his treatments.
Víctor Antonio García Rivera
What happened: Depression
Carlos Rubén Fontanez Torres
What happened: The morning after hurricane María he began to feel bad, We called 911 which did not answer. He took him the Mennonite Hospital in Aguas Buenas where a lady, maybe the secretary, along with two men, who seemed like paramedics, said there was no staff to attend him. or electricity. They also said the hospital was supposed to be flooded. His brother took him in his own car to Menonita Hospital in Caguas: On his way, his brother gave him first aid inside the car and they continued to Mennonite Hospital in Caguas where they gave him medical care and certified his death.
Jaime Humberto Escudero Maymi
What happened: Because of pulmonary disease, Jaime occasionally needed oxygen. On the fourth day after the hurricane, he started missing oxygen and could not receive oxygen because of lack of electricity or health care due to lost of communications and difficult access to the house. Jaime died of asphyxiation.
Heriberto Vega Vázquez
What happened: The patient could not get dialysis treatment. The patient was taken to Mennonite Hospital in Guayama and died in the emergency room waiting for dialysis.
Reinaldo González Rivera
Place of death: Villalba
Héctor Manuel Sánchez Solís
What happened: His house was flooded. He was soaked for hours after the hurricane broke the glass door in the room, and destroyed all the panels he had placed on the windows. He spent five or six hours hiding with his wife in the bathroom with water on the floor. He got pneumonia. He was hospitalized for nine days in the Mennonite Hospital of Caguas. He died at his home from respiratory failure on October 12. He needed oxygen therapy. There was no electricity and the electric generator collapsed.
Neftalí Rodríguez Vecchini
What happened: He had pneumonia and no portable oxygen to take it home. He could not stay in the hospital because there was no electricity or running water or food and the doctor was afraid that he could catch another infection.
Ramona Cruz Meléndez
What happened: She was at a hospital during the hurricane. The day she was supposed to be discharged she died.
Lydia Rivera Rivera
Place of death: Aibonito
What happened: My mother had a condition: a stone in the bile duct. She needed a surgery in order to avoid sepis. Her appointment was schedule for the day of the hurricane. The appointment was posponed but was never rescheduled as San Juan services and access were bad. She died on October 9 after several days in the hospital.
María Zenaida Fontanez Rosario
What happened: Not having electricity he could not use the elevator to get down from his house.
Isabel Rivera González
José Enrique Santiago Garriga
What happened: After becoming fatigued by overworking at the jail in Las Cucharas, in Ponce, he fell after having an apparent heart attack, but he was denied medical services. He was taken to hospital and was pronounced dead. They have not yet given the results of the autopsy.
Herminia Méndez Rivera
Solín Rosa Rodríguez
Place of death: Lares
What happened: He was a dialysis patient in Manati, in the Doctor Center Hospital. According to my aunt, he could not be taken from Lares to Manati to receive dialysis therapy. The treatment used to be three times a week.
Bibiano Lazu Moctezuma
What happened: It seems that taking advantage of the blackout, he was killed during a robbery and then they make to appear as a suicide.
Alfredo Rodríguez Rodríguez
What happened: He and his wife went to their relatives' house during the hurricane. He woke up to go to the bathroom, he tripped and hit his head.
Ángela Luciano Reyes
What happened: Severe depression due to lack of electricity, changes in the daily routine, the adjustable bed was not working, heat.
Lillian Margarita Altagracia Rafaela Fiol Fiallo
What happened: The hospice where Lillian Fiol Fiallo was treated could not open for three months. Her condition deteriorated until she died.
Carlos Alberto Adorno Hernández
What happened: He was diabetic, had high blood pressure and always had a heart condition. The hurricane affected him greatly because he didn't have a car for shopping. He also needed medication, but his doctor was on vacation. He went to another doctor for a prescription but he was refused. The rest of the week he was feeling worse and worse until he was taken to the emergency room on Friday. He died early on Sunday.
Iraida De Jesús Linares
What happened: With no electricity, his air pad and air conditioning could not be used. He was bedridden.
Olga Iris Rivera De León
What happened: Olga used to take dialysis twice a week. Given that dialysis centers had no electricity, her therapies were limited to once a week and occasionally she spent weeks without her dialysis.
Felícita Marrero Marrero
What happened: Due to lack of electricity, the air mattress did not work. The patient developed sores all over the body that caused infection. There was no ventilation. The sores caught infections because of the lack of air conditioning. The patient died from a respiratory arrest.
Primitivo Méndez Nieves
What happened: He lost his home during the hurricane. He even didn't want to eat or drink anything. The heat was high due to the lack of electricity. He was feeling depression. We called the ambulance and he was hospitalized for a heart failure and dehydration. Two and a half weeks later, he died from respiratory arrest.
Felícita Hernández Claudio
What happened: Sepsis. She developed a bedsore because the mattress and the electric bed did not work without electricity.
Aquilio Soto Pérez
What happened: This person collapsed after having dialysis therapy and remained six days in a coma until the death.
Miguel Ángel Ocasio Benítez
What happened: Bedridden patient. The lack of electricity forced us to take him to the hospital. During the transfer he caught pneumonia.
Eva Milagros Cruz Rodríguez
What happened: Mechanical ventilation needed. After the blackout, lungs collapsed.
Carlos Manuel Vélez Ruiz
Place of death: Yauco
What happened: He needed therapy to treat asthma but had no electricity for using the machine therapy.
Juanita Otero Rivera
What happened: Peritoneal dialysis patient. Treated at home. Could not have dialysis properly.
Carmen Laura Rivera Cruz
What happened: This person died as a consequence of the situation. Didn't have possibility to keep medicines refrigerated; lack of electricity and money.
Leonor Soto Barreto
What happened: After hurricane, lack of food, water, the loss of his room and belongings and other situations caused this person to fall into depression with panic attacks. High blood sugar, high blood pressure.
Blanca Gloria Talavera Bonet
What happened: The roof was damaged and started leaking, causing pneumonia.
Eladia Dávila
What happened: Cardiorespiratory failure. CPAP patient who needed permanent mechanical ventilation, which does not work without power.
Alma Quiles
What happened: This person didn't have electricity and his health condition worsened.
Ana Luisa Nieto Mercado
What happened: Troubles with dialysis therapies. Unavailable doctors. Blocked roads and curfews.
Carlos Manuel Fuentes Soto
What happened: No electricity to keep insulin refrigerated.
Raúl Nieves Ross
Clinical cause of death: In situ neoplasms, benign neoplasms and neoplasms of uncertain or unknown behavior
What happened: Lack of electricity.
Sergia Brunilda Mártir Cruz
What happened: My mother suffered a fall outside her home as she was waiting for food and removing debris from the front of house. She hit her head and went into a coma. She died 11 days later.
Sahara Antonia Maisonet Morales
What happened: The oppressive heat, the lack of electricity to provide her with fresh or cold air. She had high blood pressure and was providing care to a bedridden person … She was stressed and did not have resources or even a way to communicate to ask for help. Even two days before her death, we spent a lot of time trying to buy a propane cylinder in order that she could cook. She and my mother had tried countless times to call for getting oxygen tanks for my grandfather but that was impossible.
Estervina Torres Rodríguez
Vicenta Hernández Guzmán
What happened: The oxygen (both tanks, the large one and the small one) ran out. A neighbor gave me electricity for four hours. An hour and 50 minutes after the therapy, she died from lack of oxygen. We waited 11 hours before her body was picked up from the house and then we waited 10 days to bury her. It was horrible. I accept her death but not the way it happened (without air). There is something inside me that will not heal and it is the trauma I had: No communication, the long waiting to bury my dead mother, the lack of gasoline because it was over while we did so many things and finally I said goodbye to my mother from outside the cemetery because the Health Department didn't allowed us to be close to the tomb in order to avoid mosquitoes bites.
Ángel William Ávila Ortiz
What happened: My dad was staying temporarily in a nursing home. After the hurricane they asked urgently through Facebook for water because the elderly at the nursing home were dehydrated. After a month or a little later, they call me to say that my dad died. When I asked what happened, they told me that my dad's feet got swollen and they gave him a diuretic. He fell ill and died. He lasted several days with swollen feet.
Alexánder Álvarez Barreiro
What happened: I already filled out the form, but as I previously explained, we were not sure. However, I filled out the form again because today the forensic office called me to give us the results of the DNA test and it's positive. The don't know yet causes of his death but we think he died while being dragged by water.
Wilfredo Morales Rosado
What happened: Complications due to lack of proper medical attention and electricity to run oxygen machine in hospitals. The patient toured several hospitals.
Source: Tip from family and friends
Genoveva Placa Hernández
Alexánder Viera Maldonado
Leonida Díaz Rivera
Luis Felipe Carrión Soberal
Elvin Misael Mitchell Pérez
What happened: Depression.
Abigaíl Marzán Dávila
What happened: Lack of oxygen for sleep apnea patient due to lack of electricity. The 911 team could not resuscitate because their tools were uncharged.
Domingo Matos Acevedo
What happened: He was hospitalized because of the lack of electricity. His condition deteriorated.
Oscar Ayala Meléndez
What happened: Due to the lack of communication, the ambulance did not arrive on time.
Diana Santiago García
Carmen Lydia Ramos Contreras
Víctor Modesto López Amaral
What happened: There were no inpatient services.
Julia María Roldán Dávila
What happened: A test to check a brain tumor was not done because of the preparations for the hurricane. In addition, the diabetes condition was aggravated by lack of electricity.
Fernando Luis Buxeda Amadeo
Clinical cause of death: Nutritional deficiencies
Félix Irán Pérez Méndez
What happened: He climbed up a ladder with a machete to untangle the electric cable. He fell and died.
Aixa López García
What happened: A heart attack caused by high blood pressure as a consequence of lack of medical care and medicines and the negligence of the state and federal governments.
Helena Sepúlveda Rivas
Heriberto González Martínez
What happened: Two days before hurricane Irma, my grandfather was admitted at hospital because his heart valves were weak and he needed a 30 minutes surgery. The surgery was scheduled, but was postponed as a result of the hurricane. He stayed hospitalized three months waiting for the surgery. The operation room didn't have the requested equipment. Finally, he was transferred to another the hospital and the surgery was done, but in less than a week, a pneumonia won the battle.
Dulce María Merced González
What happened: His health deteriorated from lack of basic services.
Ivette León Buitrago
Sylvia Castro Alicea
Israel Ramos Bonilla
Pedro Juan Barriera Vázquez
Primitivo Pérez Ortiz
Luz María González
Luis Antonio Martínez Torres
Héctor Manuel Ruiz Torres
Eufracia Irizarry Sayas
Rafael Leonides Santiago Rodríguez
Place of death: Guayanilla
Felícita Santiago Roche
José Antonio García Ramos
Place of death: Guánica
Doris Figueroa Vega
Carmen Luz Gotay Bermúdez
Monserrate García Feliciano
Concepción Mercado Rodríguez
Santos Martínez Friend
Gloria Matilde Rodríguez De Cancio Palmer
Place of death: Morovis
José Reymundi Ríos
What happened: Alzheimer's patient. They called us to report that they would take him to a hospital because he was dehydrated. We opposed that. We signed a letter of release from liability to not remove him. He died seven days later but surrounded by his family.
Wilmer Irizarry Irizarry
Clinical cause of death: Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV disease
What happened: Could not be taken to the emergency room because there was no electricity.
David Cruz Rivera
Roberto Rivera Rodríguez
What happened: The patient needed a cardiac procedure at Medical Center but it could not be done in time.
Enrique Suárez Rosa
What happened: He had a liver condition. Due to the lack of food and electricity, he died.
Hipólito Figueroa Rivera
Felícita Delgado Vargas
Carmen Elena Velázquez
María Rivera Rivera
Juana Morales
Manuel López Heredia
Romsy Ramel Romero Ramos
What happened: Patient infected by leptospirosis. Was discharged twice from emergency rooms.
José María Bonilla Ríos
What happened: My father was a healthy and active man. He was admitted to hospital two days after the hurricane. He was diagnosed with respiratory failure and water inside his lungs. Since there was not enough oxygen at the hospital, in Bayamon, he was transferred to Melendez. At some point, the physician suggested that he should transfer him to the U.S. He started to have some heart problems and died after 36 days in the hospital. During the time I was in Puerto Rico I only could talk to the doctor once. The death certificate said he died by a septic shock."
Alicia Sánchez González
What happened: She asked for cold water. She was dehydrated and didn't want to eat. The medicines damaged her kidneys because she didn't take it with food, as is required.
Consuelo López Méndez
Place of death: Camuy
What happened: So much heat and no air conditioning aggravated the health condition of this person.
Hiram Villanueva Pérez
What happened: This person went to Buen Samaritano Hospital and spent two days under evaluation. The patient was discharged without any diagnosis. Three days later, the patient was taken to Hospital San Carlos, where he had a kidney arrest. The patient never had shown sign of kidney failure before his death.
Marcelina Ortiz
What happened: Crisis. In October, got ill and never recovered.
Eustaquio Bobones Arnau
What happened: Since there was no electricity, he fell and hit his head. After the fall, his health condition worsened.
Rafael García Meléndez
What happened: He got sick in the morning on November 13. He was taken to Menonita hospital in Cidra. He had low blood pressure, low oxygen level, low blood sugar level. His hands and feet were cold and purple. He was dehydrated. There were no food or water. Then he was transferred to a hospital in Cayey, where he was hospitalized all the whole day. He died November 14, at 12:49 in the morning.
Monserrate Figueroa Pacheco
Clinical cause of death: Parkinsons disease
What happened: My mom had a percutaneous endoscopic gastrostomy and needed to be suctioned. She needed air conditioning 24 hours a day. She began to suffocate. Pavia Yauco hospital didn't have electricity. Based on an order from governor, public ambulances were not allow to move. Municipal ambulances only could work to transport patients to the Pavia hospital. . . . I tried to get a private ambulance to transfer my mom to Hospital de la Concepcion in San German, but they had no diesel or they were not working at all. Finally I paid to take her to the hospital, but 10 minutes later she died by a respiratory arrest, asphyxiated by a phlegm. . . . . The death certificate said she died by Parkinson's disease. It is not true. The cause of her death was the hurricane, because if the electricity had not gone, she would be still alive.
Aída Margarita Del Valle Báez
What happened: Bedridden person. Multiple health conditions.
Juan Rafael Bonilla Gómez
José Antonio Pérez Santiago
What happened: Jose was using propane cylinders for cooking after hurricane Maria. On October 25, 2017 he carried a cylinder tied with a seat belt to the passenger seat of his car. We believe that he had the cylinder in the car because he needed to refill it. Apparently, the cylinder had a little leak and he lit a cigarette and caught fire inside the car. He was taken to Medical Center with burns of second- and-third degree on 64 percent of his body. He was in the Stabilization Unit for 2 days, and then he was transferred to the Trauma Unit Medical Center for five days, where a few days later he took a blood infection. He died on November 1st.
Etervina Rosado Jiménez
What happened: Patient with gastrostomy who also needed oxygen therapy.
Ovidio Ortega Lemus
What happened: This person died while making an extra effort trying to remove the water from a flooded room.
Agustín Parrilla
What happened: Augustin had been admitted to Hospital San Pablo Fajardo before the hurricane because he had not evacuated for some days and a lump emerged near to his stomach. In addition he had some Alzheimer's disease complicatios. They supplied him serum, oxygen and other treatments. He was discharged the day before Hurricane Maria, because they said 'they needed to have available beds' in case of an emergency during the hurricane. Augustin was transferred to another place, where no medical facilities were available to treat him. Two days later he had a respiratory arrest, apparently because he suffocated on his own vomit. We took him back to the hospital but he never recovered. He died on October 5.
Carlos Aníbal López Ortiz
What happened: He was a diabetic patient and his health condition got worse after the hurricane because his doctor could not see him. He could not maintain his diet correctly because he didn't have electricity.
Orlando Díaz Natal
What happened: My brother had a heart attack on Saturday before the hurricane. We took him to San Lucas hospital in Ponce, where one of the doctors told us that he needed a stent placement surgery. But first, the doctor should have a meeting with his staff on Tuesday to plan the surgery. That meeting never happened. My brother had to sign the paperwork to leave the hospital because there were no electricity or air conditioning. It was chaos in the hospital. A month later, my brother died. I truly believe his death was caused by Maria and the doctor's negligence, who didn't insert the stent.
Gilberto Lugo Rodríguez
What happened: This person couldn't keep taking therapies because the schedule of therapies changed after the arrival of so many patients.
Juan Colón Reyes
Clinical cause of death: Hernia
What happened: This patient was at the emergency room waiting for a surgery, but no surgeon was available. The communication was lost, there was not electricity and the roads were in bad condition.
Alfredo Vázquez Rivera
What happened: There was no ambulance available to take this person to hospital on time.
Eufrosina Algarín De Jesús
What happened: Missed some therapies caused by blackouts.
Judith Cubero Sánchez
What happened: This patient had a tracheotomy and needed mechanical ventilation 24 hours a day and good hygiene. There was no running water at the medical center and the patient's health conditions worsened.
Josefa Cerezo Cruz
What happened: This person had bronchitis and flu. There was no air conditioning. Died from respiratory complications.
Adela Solivan Núñez
What happened: The lack of electricity caused an inadequate temperature in the patient's room. He had Alzheimer's disease and sores in his body, primarily bedsores. The sores were under control and were healing. The heat caused a bacteria that infected the sore, aggravating his health condition and bringing on new diseases, like diabetes. In short, a terrible infection caused his death.
Luis Ángel Ramos Acoves
Ángel Luis Meléndez Díaz
What happened: Medical help arrived too late because there were no communications.
Juan Adams
What happened: Given that we had no electricity, we stopped giving medicines to the patient. The oxygen therapy was also missed. Then the patient was taken to the hospital.
Noel Llaberas Santiago
What happened: He died of pneumonia. The roof of his house blew away and his house was flooded and he didn't have a way to dry it or remove the water. There was no electricity or communications. There were fungi. He was treated at Doctor Center. He was discharged from the hospital despite his house not being ready for living there. He died five days after being discharge from Doctor Center. In Cerro Gordo, people don't have power or running water and lost communication.
Francisco De Jesús De Jesús
Place of death: Santa Isabel
What happened: This person was taken to a shelter (hospital) the day of the hurricane. Heat caused by the lack of air conditioning aggravated this person's health condition.
Luis Rivera Ortiz
What happened: My father was very stressed by what happened. He started repairing the zinc roof alone, even though he had a pacemaker. According to the death certificate, he died from a hypertensive ischemic cardiomyopathy . I'm a nurse and I think that the night before his death, which happened while he was sleeping early in the morning, his pacemaker was disconnected as a consequence of the extra effort he had done. Since the pacemaker was disconnected, his cardiac rhythm slowed down while he was sleeping and he died.
María Socorro Pomales Suárez
What happened: Given that there was no electricity, this person slipped and fell down, hitting his head, while leaving the shower.
Edwin González Tirado
What happened: This person fell from a stair while preparing for the hurricane.
Josefa Báez Facio
What happened: Bedridden person. As a consequence of the lack of electricity, a bedsore emerged and was infected by a bacteria that caused the death. Air conditioning was needed to keep the skin fresh.
Juan Antonio González Pérez
What happened: This patient was infected by a bacteria caused by a blackout at hospital. The hospital didn't have a power generator working. The patient was provided with a floor fan to cool the room. The patient had mechanical ventilation working properly.
Nicolás Torres Colón
What happened: The health condition of this person was aggravated by the impossibility of keeping refrigerated the medicines to raise the hemoglobin levels, and the stress caused by the lack of basic services.
Carmen Julia Rivera Román
What happened: This person did not receive the dialysis therapy needed.
Juana Castro Rivera
Miguel Ángel Carino Vázquez
What happened: This person supposedly felt a strong pain, but no doctor was called.
Ángel Luis Díaz Morales
Place of death: Isabela
What happened: This person died from a heart attack. Had no water or electricity. Nor could communicate with the family because no signal was available. A medical appointment was canceled because of the same circumstances."
Virginia Burgos Feliciano
What happened: The medical equipment was not working.
Gabriel Mendoza Cortés
What happened: This person died as a consequence of the blackout.
Margarita Reyes Cruz
What happened: Since there was no electricity, the mechanical ventilation and the therapy machine were not working. In addition to the blackout, the heat and the lack of running water aggravated the condition of this patient.
Rufino Adorno Valentín
Clinical cause of death: Chronic liver disease and cirrhosis
What happened: Bedridden person. The heat and poor ventilation affected this person's quality of life.
Gerardo Rafael Olivera Miranda
What happened: My father went to work, he felt bad and came back home. Since there were no communications (telephone and internet), we could not call 911. We went to the local police station and they told us that the only two ambulances were not available, that they were busy.
Ángel Badillo Mirles
What happened: This person suffered a diabetic coma, but couldn't be taken to hospital on time because of the hurricane. There were no access to roads or communications. When finally the person was taken to hospital, other organs were already affected. The hospital had no electricity.
Carmen Teresa Torres Alcocer
What happened: She was hospitalized. The hurricane caused a blackout. She needed artificial ventilation all the time. I never was allowed to see her body or identify her. My name is Cynghia Green Torres and I'm her daughter. That happened in Menonita hospital in Caguas.
Felipe Rivera Huertas
What happened: His house and his crops of plantains, papayas, bananas and other fruits were lost. Depression, anxiety, lack of running water and electricity _ all these things consumed him. He was taken to Doctor Center in Manati … He was still a strong person with good appetite. I lost my wife on September 13, 2017, the same day she turned 55, and my father on November 9, 2017. I'm devastated.
Mariano Fonseca Rivera
What happened: Since there was no electricity, this person couldn't use the sleep apnea machine.
Doris Milagros Torres Quesada
What happened: She was discharged from the hospital without the equipment needed for her treatment at home. There were no services the second time she was taken to the hospital after hurricane Maria.
Liduvina González Rivera
What happened: After the hurricane, there was no air conditioning at her room and was impossible to give her therapy. She was taken to the emergency room. She was admitted at Damas hospital. But there was no air conditioning at her room either. There was not oxygen neither. She died a day later from sepsis.
Samuel Borges Colón
What happened: He got ill and had no way to get help.
Myrna Mercedes Díaz Nieves
What happened: Due to lack of proper medical care, my mother had a gastrointestinal perforation, which caused her sepsis. Her condition worsened and finally she died from a septic shock.
Miguelina Fernández Rodríguez
What happened: My mother's heart rate accelerated just knowing the news that hurricane Irma was approaching. I took her to Santa Isabel hospital. From there she was transferred to San Cristobal. She stayed there during both hurricanes (Irma and Maria). After hurricane, doctors told me that her condition worsened. As there was no electricity, the hospital was working with power generators. On Sunday after hurricane, I was told that she needed to be intubated. She was intubated in her room because the intensive care unit didn't have room. One day later, the power generator was damage and we stayed 14 hours without power, opening all the doors for cooling the area. Finally she was taken to the intensive care unit. The day after arriving to the intensive unit I was told that she had a bacteria caused by the lack of electricity. Some days later my mom died.
María Elena Rúa
What happened: Dialysis patient.
Luis Raúl Martínez Rodríguez
What happened: Bedridden patient who needed electric medical devices and air conditioning. He needed an air mattress, oxygen, suction machine, feeding machine, therapy machine. After the hurricane, his pulmonary fibrosis worsened. The power generator was damaged. The access to the house was difficult. We got a power generator, but it was not possible to plug all the medical devices at the same time. Then, the infections began, fevers and fatigue until he left.
Clara Felisa Duarte Vega
What happened: She depended on artificial ventilation. After the hurricane, she needed to be connected to the mechanical ventilation all the time and her condition worsened.
Monserrate Santana Concepción
Place of death: Sabana Grande
What happened: My dad could not breathe. We called 911, but we didn't get an ambulance. It was impossible to give him artificial ventilation because there was no electricity.
Rosalía Meléndez Miranda
What happened: The chemotherapy center canceled my grandmother's appointment in preparation to Hurricane Irma. Not reopened due to lack of electricity. My grandmother died from complications directly associated with lack chemotherapy.
Agosto Monserrate Rosado
What happened: He was taken in critical condition to Ryder hospital in Humacao. He was discharged the same day due to lack of basic resources, such as running water, electricity, medicines and trained staff. The next day, he was taken to Menonita hospital in Caguas where he was admitted at the intensive unit and given treatment. But his condition was very critical and died five days later.
Ismael Fuentes Velázquez
What happened: This person died because the lack of electricity damaged the insulin and it was impossible to get more. The patient's glucose levels were out of control, rising to about 900. The ketones in the pancreas got out of control, too. The patient stayed approximately 13 days at hospital and the day they were supposed to be discharged, they had to call an ambulance because sugar levels rose again. Then the hospital certified the death.
Harry Figueroa Álvarez
What happened: Due to lack of electricity, my dad suffocated because he needed air conditioning all the day for a better breathing. We took his bed to the balcony and tried to get a power generator. We took him to the hospital but his whole system collapsed. The hospital gave me his decomposed body three days after death.
María Cristina Muñiz Román
What happened: She began to feel ill, with vomiting, diarrhea, fever. She was a diabetic patient. We could not take her to any hospital because the winds were beginning.
Vivianne Janet Olivero Jurado
What happened: She was bedridden and needed breathing therapies and air conditioning because she had bedsores. One week before her death, she was hospitalized with pneumonia. Due to lack of electricity, it was not possible to give her proper treatment at home. She suffocated and medical emergency help did not arrive on time.
Fernando Emilio Aponte Colón
What happened: Stroke caused by stress related to the hurricane and its complications.
Carmen Rosa García
Place of death: Ciales
What happened: The lack of proper hygiene due to lack of running water caused the emergence of more bedsores. In addition, the ventilation machine was impossible to use because of the lack of gas for turning the generator on.
Irma Ivonne Lugo Sánchez
What happened: Patient with cancer who needed radiation therapy. The patient was discharged on September 19, 2017, from San Juan Municipal hospital with instructions to get some radiation therapies.
Genaro Rodríguez Rivera
What happened: This person lost the roof, lost everything. Was so sad and had a heart attack.
Elena Pérez López
What happened: My mom was 92 years old and had several health conditions: osteoporosis, hypothyroidism, skin cancer, atrial fibrosis, Alzheimer's disease, anxiety.
Ernie Luis Figueroa Rivera
What happened: Dialysis patient. He had his dialysis therapy on Monday and the doctor told him he had chickungunya fever. On Wednesday he was at a hospital in a serious health condition. The day he was supposed to have his dialysis therapy again, the dialysis center did not answer due to lack of phone signal. Finally, Doctor Center in Carolina accepted to provide him dialysis therapy. While waiting to be transferred, the patient died at 3:21 p.m., infected by a bacteria
Ernesto Rodríguez Rivera
What happened: He needed breathing therapies, but it was difficult due to the blackout. He needed therapies every four hours. During the day, it was sometimes possible to find a way to give him therapies. But at night, it was impossible.
Álvaro Moreno Torres
What happened: At home, there was no electricity since Hurricane Irma. The Metropolitan hospital did not have electricity either. Being bedridden, he got a cold. He received his therapies using a power generator. But when Hurricane Maria hit, it was impossible to get gas for turning the generator on. Due to the interruption of his therapies, his condition worsened. He was taken to Metropolitan hospital but there they did not have electricity or air conditioning. The power generator stopped working several times. My dad kept getting worse and died.
Marisol Cartagena Pérez
What happened: My sister had severe depressive disorder. She tried to poison herself twice. She was once admitted at Metropolitan Psychiatric hospital in Cabo Rojo. After hurricane Maria, her daughter with three young children lost everything because her apartment got flooded. In addition to her daughter's and grandchildren's situation, the lack of electricity, running water and loss of communication led my sister to fall into a deep depressive state. She drank all of her medication for the depressive disorder. My niece told me that the emergency help took almost four hours to get there. The next day she died.
Ovidio Santa Pagán
Place of death: Florida
What happened: This person lost a home and started feeling depressive until they stopped breathing.
Félix López Bonilla
What happened: The hospital did not admit him because it was full of patients.
Francisca Durán Acevedo
What happened: The lack of electricity and communication worsened her bedsore. A proper treatment was not provided on time. When she was finally taken to Mayagüez Medical Center, it was late. Her condition was complicated with sepsis. The treatment provided was not in time and she died a week after being admitted at hospital.
Ramona Matos Rivera
What happened: This person died as a consequence of the inadequate use of medical equipment due to lack of electricity. The patient required an oxygen concentrator, suction, breathing therapy, nasogastric feeding and an automatic bed. The patient's condition worsened bacause of the gases from the power generators. The nursing home's medical team lost communication, creating countless crisis. The patient died of congestive heart failure.
Nicómedes Santiago Piñeiro
What happened: This person went to a hospital because there was a flu outbreak and was discharged.
Víctor Manuel Díaz Torres
What happened: Victor Manuel was bedridden for 53 years, since he was born. He had several conditions, including epilepsy. After hurricane, his health began to deteriorate because his parents, both more than 80 years old, had no electricity. Medicines were damaged, he was not fed properly, heat and the lack of runnning water were some of the things that affected his health.
Mariana Marrero Figueroa
What happened: The doctors could not communicate between them to coordinate my mother's heart valve surgery. There was no electricity available to perform the surgery. In addition, the tanker truck carrying water to the hospital was stolen. A lot of time was lost. My mom wast hospitalized 39 days, 20 of them at the intensive unit.
Carlos Roldán Santana
What happened: This person stayed during the hurricane in a shelter, away from any relative and feeling cold because the nursing home lost communication.
Abraham Vicente Díaz Soltero
What happened: Abrahan needed an ambulance shuttle service three times a week to go from San Juan to a hospital in Manati for dialysis. Hurricane Maria damaged roads, making the commute almost impossible. In addition, there was no electricity to turn dialysis machine on. Abrahan missed several dialysis. He got pneumonia and was admitted at a hospital. He had a heart attack. Died in the Intensive Care Unit days later.
Felícita Matos Ramos
What happened: After the hurricane, she began to feel depressed and afraid of the darkness caused by blackouts. She also feared that a river would overflow. On November 7 she started feel anxious, with pain in the back and arms. I called an ambulance and we took her to Centro Médico in Mayagüez. There she died after two heart attacks. She only lasted 10 hours in the hospital. For her age she was in very good health. She worked 40 years as a specialist in dietetics in a hospital in New York.
Miguel Ángel Hernández Román
What happened: He was living at a nursing home and was transferred from there without any information given to his family. His children looked for him at the nursing home he was supposedly staying in, but no information about his whereabouts was available.
Gaspar Cruz Agosto
What happened: My father was admitted to Ryder hospital on August 30 with diverticulitis, but there they found a mass inside his lung. Due to the hurricane, he was discharged. He had a stroke and was admitted to the intensive care unit, but no diagnosis was done. Because of lack of circulation of blood, his right leg was amputated. He was transferred to HIMA hospital in Humacao and died. He had a painful death.
Macario Seda Pérez
Place of death: Cabo Rojo
What happened: Since there was no electricity, the oxygen machine was not working. The oxygen tank was empty. The hospice didn't return to the nursing home after the hurricane and lost communication.
Adelaida Mejías González
What happened: The hospital didn't treat my mother properly. The temperature in the room was so hot due to lack of air conditioning. The windows had to stay open. On September 28 she had a surgery for intestinal obstruction. After surgery, our mother was doing well. The third day after surgery she was intubated without our knowledge or consent, and on the fourth day she was just a corpse.
Aurea Esther Berrios Pina
What happened: This person catched a lung infection probably as a consequence of the lack of air conditioning at the nursing home. In adition to pneumonia, the patient developed sepsis. Hospital treatment and facilities were working normally. Another person who lived in that nursing home also died but we do not know the specific details.
Jorge Schettini Morales
What happened: The health condition of this patient started to worsen because the lack of air conditioning during the day. It was impossible to call any medical service because there was no mobile signal.
Delia María Rodríguez Rodríguez
What happened: After hurricane she was depressed and stopped walking. She died bedridden with a sore in her skin. We provided support to her and followed all medical recommendations. As her children, we were taking care of her 24 hours a day.
Iluminada Reyes Silva
Jhon Alberto Hernández Núñez
Irma González Román
José Carino Ramos
Maricarmen Márquez
Alberto Adame Figueroa
Ángel Collazo Rivera
Ángel Rodríguez Valentín
José Aníbal Reyes Sotomayor
Aurea Esther Benítez Rodríguez
Bernardina Díaz Colón
Carmen María Meléndez
Place of death: Utuado
Catalina Martínez Ortiz
Celedonio Cuevas Olang
Place of death: Adjuntas
Daniel Torres Cruz
Delia López Vélez
Eduviges Soto Pérez
Eduviges Tellado Aponte
Eileen González Castillo
Elizabeth Mary Colón Miranda
Estrella Román Pabón
Félix Cuevas Maldonado
Félix Renta
Froilán Suárez Marcial
Gloria Esther Vega Candelaria
Héctor Manuel Ortiz Suárez
Édgar Rubén Caraballo Matías
Isaías Jael Malavé Torres
Ismael Tellado Rios Jr
José Antonio Caraballo Mercado
José Antonio Santiago Rodríguez
José Enrique Martínez Rentas
José Heredia Medina
José Ricardo Galarza Mercado
Jovita López Torres
Hermenegildo Cote Meléndez
Place of death: Lajas
Luis Antonio Cartagena Pérez
Luis Imperial Rivera Cruz
Luis Rodríguez Rofriguez
Manuel Flores Escobar
Margarita Rodríguez Caraballo
María Victoria Campos Alvarado
Marilyn Vega Ramos
Miguel Ángel Malavé Rivera
Moisés Rodríguez Lafontaine
Noé Correa Rivera
Norberto Vega Maldonado
Olga Marina Barros Rivera
Olga Margarita Vázquez Luna
Paulita Cidrón Rodríguez
Pedro Eddie Pérez Ruiz
Rafael Burgos Ortiz
Place of death: Orocovis
Luis Rafael Rodríguez Vargas
Ramón Luis Morales Santiago
Ramona Casiano Rivera
Rita María Albino Vázquez
Rita Rosario Rodríguez
Salvador Armando Rosa Montañez
Serafín Caraballo Silva
Wilfredo López Pérez
Teodoro Colón Rodríguez
Ángel Luis Lorenzo González
Alida Ruiz González
Aura Lydia Rivas Flores
Benigno De Jesús Ortiz
Betsaida Colón Colón
Carmen Gladys González Collazo
David Serrano Hernández
Doel Ramos Báez
Emma Díaz Morales
Enrique Acevedo Rivera
Enrique Pérez Rivera
Francisca Del Valle
Place of death: Juncos
Francisca Esquilin Mendoza
Gabriel Omar Rodríguez Sepúlveda
Gretchen Grisselle Miranda Negrón
Harold Cancel Rosa
Place of death: Toa Baja
Harry Arce Tirado
Place of death: Rincón
Héctor Luis Matías Torres
Héctor Luis Merced Hernández
Higinio Calderón Mercado
Iris Minerva González Collazo
Javier Jesús Miranda Matos
Jorge Antonio Pabón Orona
José Antonio Rivera Santiago
José David Muñiz Otero
José Javier Suárez Menéndez
Juan Enrique Mora Quiñones
Place of death: Cataño
Juana Rosario Clemente
Kevin Ariel Montijo Martínez
Keyla Damaris Santiago Cabrera
Lawrence Benjamín Potter
Place of death: Vieques
Lydia Rivera Saldaña
Lucía Torres Vargas
Luis Ángel Lusiano Vilanova
Luis Cintrón Goden
Place of death: Las Marías
Luis Manuel Santana Ruiz
Luz María Ortiz Ortiz
Martín Lozada Rivera
Maximino Feliciano
Miguel Orlando Pacheco
Miguel Omar Coss Medina
Molly Rosado Rodríguez
Obed Rivera Crespo
Ramón Antonio Mercado García
Ramón Jorge Morales
Ramón Rivera Pino
Roberto Serrano Rosa
Rosa Cintrón Irizarry
Place of death: Canóvanas
Dominick Anthony Santiago Faura
Sara Luz González Collazo
Tomás Quintana Ortiz
Wesley Negrón Adorno
Minerva Ayala Salgado
What happened: After the hurricane she stopped receiving chemotherapy for lack of transportation. She used to travel by boat to the big island. So she was admitted at a hospital and had a surgery. They put her a percutaneous endoscopic gastrostomy to fed her. She was discharged, but at home she had no electricity to be fed properly. Given the lack of electricity, there were no air conditioning either. Some sores started to appear on her body. Until she could no longer hold out and died.
Andrés Corcino Camacho
What happened: Medical malpractice.
Antonia Vegerano Herrera
What happened: Resperatory arrest because of hurricane.
Félix París Tapia
What happened: Hurricane Maria affected the dialysis center on Vieques island. As the services got interrupted in Vieques, he had to travel to Humacao or Cupey, in the main island, three times a week for getting dialysis therapy. He was bedridden and the trips were rough. His condition started rapidly to deteriorate. So we were advised not to take him anymore, but we continued until he died.
Juan Boulogne Pérez
What happened: Lack of medical treatment because the electric system collapsed at the hospital in Carolina and the communication went down.
Ramón Ortiz Rodríguez
What happened: Heart attack.
Serafín Ortiz Andino
Lucila Pardo Ubide
What happened: Without electricity, the adjustable bed was not working. The patient had bedsores.
Abraham Rolon Cordero
What happened: Cancier patient who could not receive treatment for three months. Cancer metastasis.
Alfredo Cabrera Donato
What happened: Suicide (burned himself).
Nelson Acevedo Pérez
What happened: He died three days after the hurricane due to lack of oxygen. The Good Samaritan hospital discharged him prior to the hurricane.
Ivelisse Rosario Báez
What happened: No cancer treatment received due to energy failure.
Nydia Morales Pérez
Juanito Rivera Burgos
Meraris Class Adorno
What happened: A tree fell on his car.
Josefa Chevres Rivera
José Manuel Torres Martínez
Clinical cause of death: Viral hepatitis
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Adjuntas
Aguada
Añasco
Canóvanas
Cataño
Ciales
Guánica
Guayama
Guayanilla
Hatillo
Hormigueros
Jayuya
Juana Díaz
Lajas
Las Marías
Loíza
Manatí
Maricao
Mayagüez
Quebradillas
Sabana Grande
San Germán
Trujillo Alto
Utuado
Yauco
Ramón Cruz Laboy
What happened: He had a liver condition and he never got the medicine he needed approved. A short while after the hurricane and after a fall, his condition deteriorated. I took him to my house. He came in and out from hospital. Before the hurricane, he used to walk and go out despite his condition. He did his life. The knock on the knee and hip affected him deeply. He was alive and well before the hurricane. I think if he had not had that fall he could be alive today.
José Román Álvarez Fonseca
What happened: He had a pacemaker with defibrillator. He had a surgery in 2009. After the storm, while removing rubble from his house, he hit his leg in the courtyard. He had a surgery in order to remove a clot from his leg. After that his health deteriorated . We remained without electricity until February 26. The heat suffocated him and every time his health was aggravated. He was bedridden. He spent 13 days in hospice care. He needed an oxygen machine that could run with a power generator. At the end, his lungs failed.
Aída María Abreu Rodríguez
What happened: She lived with me; she was bedridden. We had no electricity and we depended on power generator. She needed a breathing machine and it's not the same with a power generator. We couldn't keep the air conditioning on all the time. There were many difficulties. She got a cold and I took her to the hospital. There she died. The electricity didn't came back until June 11.
María Felícita Arroyo Beltrán
What happened: She had respiratory difficulties, Alzheimer's and her liver did longer worked. She always needed oxygen with the breathing machine but we had no electricity. I had to buy a power generator. She got worse. We had no air conditioning. With the generator, things did not work well. Everything got damaged. A power generator was not enough for keeping the breathing machine working.
Ángela Santos Martínez
What happened: She needed an oxygen machine but she didn't have electricity. Finally we got a power generator on October 18, but it only lasted seven days with her. She needed her oxygen. Her health absolutely deteriorated as a result of not having it. She had no air conditioning either. She had Alzheimer's and Parkinson's but was receiving good treatment. Before the hurricane she was fine, given her condition.
Aída Ramona Cruz Cardona
What happened: Lack of medical attention.
Aníbal Dones Flores
Yolanda Burgos Morales
What happened: After Hurricane Maria, the lack of electricity, the long lines under the sun, the economic crisis, the lack of water caused Yolanda a lot of anxiety, leading her to a heart attack and then the death. Yolanda was a nurse at the hospital Ryder in Humacao, which got severely damaged after the hurricane and could not provide services to their patients anymore. So Yolanda became unemployed and she started to be depressed. After the heart attack she was intubated from December 22, 2017 until her death on January 21, 2018.
Virginia Ramos Aponte
What happened: Mom had to use an oxygen mask for her lung condition due to her age. As a consequence of not using the oxygen mask 24 hours a day, she got a lung infection or pneumonia. I took her to a nursing home for care, but there was no electricity there either.
Hilario Negrón Cruz
What happened: After the hurricane, the power generator was damaged. He had a lung condition. One of his lungs was only working at 10%. He had difficulties breathing, had several colds and was in the hospital more than once. Then the health complications began, even after the electricity came again. I think that with the power generator damaged, my dad didn't find the way to stay cool enough. He didn't have fan. Maybe his death was not a direct consequence, but maybe he died because of the time he lasted without all the required care, like oxygen, food and his sleeping hours.
María Ester Valles Vega
Luis Castro Vega
Carlos Luis Irizarry Lugo
What happened: After the hurricane passed, they could no longer provide oxygen therapy to the patient because there was no electricity. The also needed to split the oxygen among several patients. They didn't provide the patient the proper care that was provided at the beginning, when we arrived.
Carmen Eloína Rivera Rivera
What happened: She had pneumonia, but she died after the strong storm. She felt hopeless. I got tired trying to call the nurses at 7:00 pm but they never appeared.
Julito Marty Irizarry
What happened: He was taking Metformin, which causes diarrhea. During the hurricane, there was no water or electricity. He was in the house with his son and his brother. He did not want to eat because in case of diarrhea he could not go down to the toilet. I think he died from dehydration.
Ana Belén Pantoja Sierra
What happened: We left the house in the middle of flooding, with the rfloodwater up to your neck and through the window. The water was black and my mom fell on the road and swallowed that water. She was fine for a few days and then she got ill. She lasted two or three days suffering pain and feeling ill, but she did not ask to see a doctor. When I took her to the doctor at night, she was admitted and never get out again. The doctors told me she was exposed to bacteria from mice.
Tomasa Báez Merced
What happened: There was no power generator. No neighbor had basic services. The weather was hot. I understand that the care did not come on time. They are from Las Piedras.
Petra Martínez Abréu
What happened: She stopped eating and talking after loosing all her facilities, like a room with air conditioning to prevent her ulcers from getting worse. I think her death is an indirect effect of the hurricane because she did not have her equipment anymore. If that had not happened, we would still have her with us.
Felícita Martínez Morales
What happened: Her lung condition worsened because she needen permanen oxygen. At home we had two power generator, but they aggravated her condtion. In the hospital, they asked me if I had a generator at home.
Víctor Hugo Ruiz Ramos
Place of death: Corozal
What happened: He had emphysema. An explosion at the gas station caused the gases to come into his house and due to the lack of electricity he could not activate his oxygen machine. So he could not breath. An ambulance took him to the emergency center in Corozal, but he died on the way.
José Rafael Sánchez Román
What happened: My dad had a heart condition. He had a surgery in February. He lived on a hill and it seems that he didn't survive the shock of the hurricane.
Fausta Digna Sanabria Rodríguez
What happened: There were no doctors available to give her medication for her bedsores. Her son wanted to take her to a nursing home in Aibonito, where there was electricity. Arriving in Aibonito she was taken to the hospital Menonita because her health condition got worse. She died almost upon arriving at hospital. The lack of electricity aggravated her health and she died.
José Sampayo Fernández
María Margarita Cintrón Rosario
Éric José Campos
Angélica Santiago Pérez
What happened: Before the hurricane, she had a relapse. She was hospitalized two weeks and she stabilized. After the hurricane, we realized she was very affected by what she was seeing through the window, what was happening, and her condition was gradually aggravated until she died."
Alfonsa Díaz Figueroa
Carlos Gregorio García Firpi
What happened: There was no transportation in Puerto Rico. I could not go to see him on time. He came on his own to the hospital. He was treated for only one day and sent back to home. He has long suffered from skin cancer on the face and arms. He refused to have an open heart surgery and a colonoscopy. He was stable before the hurricane, although he began to have memory problems and he got lost several times. He was independent and he used to buy his own food.
Édgar Rodríguez
What happened: He was receiving chemotherapy every week and was strong. He used to walk. He received chemotherapy on Sept. 18, but after the hurricane we were isolated for 10 days without electricity or water at his brother's until an ambulance from the Civil Defense came and transferred him to hospital La Concepcion in San Germán. That day he received chemotherapy but his condition was already very deteriorated. He was 6.2 feet and weighed 350 pounds, but he was down to 200 pounds in less than a month. On his third visit to the hospital, we were told that there was nothing to do because an X-ray showed damage to his lungs.
José Alberto Álvarez Febles
What happened: The concern about lack of tourists, the national tragedy and the argument with his partner caused his heart attack, but he did not die at that moment. I found him lying in his apartment, called an ambulance and took him to the nearest hospital with heart surgery unit. There his condition worsened. He got pneumonia and died.
Egraciela Galíndez Ortega
What happened: She had been permanently connected two months to an oxygen concentrator because her lungs failed, but she was stable. She used to eat, talk and she was at home. But after the hurricane things got complicated. She spent almost two days without oxygen and her condition worsened. We took her to a medical center in the Coliseum. They gave her oxygen and transferred her to the hospital. Her condition improved and she was discharged. Then she was hospitalized for the second time and died there. The deterioration of her health was caused by lack of oxygen.
Julio Rosario Gómez
Clinical cause of death: Assault (homicide
What happened: Julio was attacked and killed by a homeless man due to lack of money. Julio used to feed his attacker. When the attacker knew that Julio received some money from FEMA, he assaulted him to steal the money and killed him.
Luz María Bracero Ramos
What happened: Alzheimer's patient. His health deteriorated due to lack of electricity.
Luz María Figueroa Ocejo
What happened: The daughter said her mother had cardiorespiratory symptoms after the hurricane. She was taken to San Francisco Hospital. While in the hospital, she had a heart attack. Early in the morning of Sept. 22, the hospital system collapsed, so they transferred all the patients who needed mechanical ventilation. Her mother was taken to Pavia Hospital in Santurce on Sept. 23. They arrived at the hospital at about 6 a.m. Her mother was moved to a room after 9:00 p.m. Just half an hour after she was moved to the room, she died.
Pilar Guzmán Ríos
What happened: The day of the hurricane, the house was flooded and she tried to remove the water even during the rain. She caught pneumonia and died. Her son said that his mother in the middle of the heavy rain tried to clean the sewer to stop the water continuing to flood the house. She got completely wet and got ill. Several days later, she still had chest pain. The son cannot say if her mother received proper medication to treat
Brian Mallory Santiago Page
What happened: He died of a heart attack at his home. He had fallen that day, striking his knees, so he went to lie down. When his mother went to check him, he did not answer. They checked his pulse and found that it was very low. This happened at 10 p.m. Public ambulances didn't have fuel and the private ones did not want to go because of debris and flooding. The next day, at 8 a.m., a state ambulance arrived, but he was already dead. His sister said his death was caused by the hurricane because if he had received timely medical services, he would have recovered.
Leonardo Encháutegui Flores
What happened: The son said that after the hurricane, he removed the debris from his father's house. Nevertheless, his father decided to climb to the roof of the house to continue cleaning, even when his son told him that conditions were not suitable for him to go up. His father climbed to the roof, slipped on some branches and fell off the roof from a height of 10 feet, dying on the spot.
What happened: She had never had a breathing condition. After the hurricane the general doctor treated her as asthma and told me to take her to hospital. We thought it was asthma or just fatigue. One day we couldn't anymore and call an ambulance. The paramedic said she had water in her lungs. She never got an appointment with a pneumologist as a consequence of the effects of the hurricane. It was very late and died in the hospital.
Míriam Herrera Álvarez
What happened: She was a woman with several conditions. Given she had an amputated leg, I as her daughter-in-law, used to do things for her. But I was working and had to take care of my two children. After Hurricane Maria, there were a lot of things we needed, but it was difficult to get them _ for example ice to keep the insulin at the correct temperature.
Ana Rivera Reyes
What happened: Lack of electricity and water caused her depression. She did not even want to eat or get out of bed. Because of this she caught pneumonia. She spent 25 days in intensive care unit, never recovered and died.
José Ángel Fonseca Álvarez
What happened: He had equipment for a bedsore that needed electricity. In addition, he needed skin care treatment. Some nurses used to take care of him at home. After the hurricane they never came back again. His sore got worse. We took him to Pavia Hospital in Santurce on Oct. 3 where he had a surgery and remained hospitalized until Nov. 1. He was discharged. He needed to use an electric machine to heal his sore and the machine needed to be recharged every eight hours. He was bleeding a lot because the machine suctioned the sore. The heat, humidity and other factors worsened his whole condition.
Providencia Rivera Reyes
To see full list, please visit:https://hurricanemariasdead.com/database.html
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