Vegas hospital lost track of fetuses for 8 hours before they were found in laundry

The twin fetuses of a woman who miscarried this week were unaccounted for by medical staff at Spring Valley Hospital Medical Center for least eight hours until they were discovered in a soiled linen shipment at a Henderson laundry, according to a police report released Thursday.

The patient was asking Spring Valley staff about her fetuses hours after a laundry worker made the grisly discovery at Angelica Textiles, Henderson police Detective Felicia Benjamins wrote in her report.

“Spring Valley Hospital confirmed the fetuses were from their hospital as the mother of the fetuses was making inquiries about her fetuses at the same time Angelica Textiles was calling about the fetuses being located in a towel from their hospital,” Benjamins wrote.

The woman, whose name, age and hometown were redacted from the report, was in the same room at the hospital with the fetuses, the report said.

“Hospital protocol is to send the placenta and the fetuses to pathology,” Benjamins wrote. “The placenta was prepared to be delivered to the pathology department and reached the pathology department. The fetuses were in the process to be delivered to pathology when the nurse, who was preparing the fetuses for pathology, had to take the patient (mother) to radiology. When the nurse returned to the patient’s room the fetuses were inadvertently thrown in the linen container by housekeeping.”

A driver from Angelica eventually picked up the laundry between midnight Monday and 1 a.m. Tuesday, police said. The driver delivered the load to the company’s facility at 1080 Mary Crest Road where the fetuses were discovered by Maria Alba, a laundry sorter, about 7:30 a.m.

At least three other Angelica officials were told about the incident before police were called more than two hours after Alba’s discovery. Angelica customer service representative Susan Levy called Spring Valley before any Angelica official contacted police shortly after 10 a.m.

After police arrived, Benjamins called the Clark County coroner’s office, and Investigator Jenn Jacobs ruled out foul play and took the fetuses back to Spring Valley.

The woman had been taken Monday by paramedics from American Medical Response from the South Point, and the miscarriage occurred before her arrival at the Spring Valley emergency room. The fetuses were at 16 weeks of conception, nearly two months from when they would be viable enough to survive outside their mother’s womb.

Universal Health Services, the parent company of Spring Valley, issued a statement this week saying hospital personnel were working with the family. A spokeswoman said no comment would be made Thursday.

The Bureau of Health Care Quality and Compliance is investigating how the fetuses ended up at the Henderson laundry, and the results of the inquiry eventually will be made public, a state public health official said Wednesday. The agency promotes quality health care through licensing, regulation enforcement and education.

Contact Steven Moore at smoore@reviewjournal.com or 702-380-4563.