by Rod Hughes
The trial of Juan Carlos Ledezma, accused of arson and 19 counts of homicide, began Monday in criminal court. The defendant, a male nurse, was charged with causing one of the country’s most terrible tragedies in recent years, a roaring inferno that destroyed the fourth and fifth floors of the antiquated neurosurgery unit of Calderon Guardia Hospital July 12, 2005, killing 16 patients and three nurses.
Ledezma was a male nurse at the facility. After the fire, investigators revealed that most of Ledezma’s credentials, that hospital personnel staff had relied upon in hiring him, were forgeries, the press reported.
In the aftermath, the entire wing of the hospital had to be demolished and another, costing millions of dollars, is under construction. Early news reports blamed the fire on faulty wiring in the obsolete facility, based on firefighters’ suspicions. (Faulty wiring is the most common cause of fires in this country.)
But TV Channel 6, part of the Repretel network, interviewed hospital workers and Repretel News was early in reporting alleged arson as the cause. It was several weeks before OIJ, the equivalent of Britain’s Scotland Yard, admitted it was following a possible arson lead.
Some 26 witnesses have been lined up by the prosecution and defense lawyers. The fire is reported to have started in a fourth floor storeroom filled with inflammable materials and spread quickly to the rest of the wing. The horror multiplied when the fire extinguishers were found to be empty and alarms failed to work. Some of the more mobile patients managed to escape through windows, either alone or with the aid of nurses. One nurse especially became a national heroine, sacrificing her life for her patients. But many patients were bedridden and unable to help themselves
But more than Ledezma appears to be on trial, if the first two witnesses called by the prosecution Monday are any measure. Soon after the blaze, strong public and editorial criticism was leveled at national public hospital administration for conditions in the old unit that contributed to the tragic loss of life. Luis Alfonso Pérez, father of a 17-year-old neurosurgery patient, said Monday that the only nurse in the early evening hour of the fire was absent, having coffee on another floor when the fire began. He told the three-judge panel that “others must be (involved) in this legal process due to their negligence.”
Pérez added that the passages that offered the only avenue of escape were choked with wheelchairs, wastebaskets, tables and other medical equipment.