Chapter 8 - The Hospital Footage
St. Andrew’s fought the request for two days.
Then prosecutors obtained a court order.
The litigation archive contained sixteen hours of hallway video.
The footage had no audio.
But it showed enough.
Dad’s room.
11:38 p.m.
Mom entered carrying a tote bag.
11:52.
Avery arrived.
12:07.
Gregory entered with an IV bag.
12:19.
Avery left.
Mom remained.
12:26.
Gregory left.
12:41.
Dad’s call light activated.
Nobody entered.
12:44.
It activated again.
12:48.
Again.
I stared at the screen.
“Why isn’t anyone going in?”
Caroline looked pale.
“That light should have triggered the nursing station.”
The footage continued.
12:53.
Mom stepped into the hallway.
She looked toward the nurses’ desk.
Then back into Dad’s room.
1:02.
Gregory returned.
1:17.
A rapid-response team finally arrived.
Dad was transferred to intensive care.
He died less than an hour later.
Morales checked the electronic nursing logs.
According to the official record, Gregory had responded to Dad’s call light at 12:42.
The video proved he had not.
The record was false.
Then the forensic team enhanced another section.
At 12:06, before Gregory entered, Mom handed Avery something.
A small envelope.
At 12:20, Avery walked away with it.
Daniel watched the footage only once.
Then typed.
“Mom cried later.”
I looked at him.
“After Dad died?”
He shook his head.
“Before.”
He remembered sitting in a family waiting room at approximately midnight.
Mom came in.
She was crying.
Daniel asked whether Dad was okay.
Mom told him Dad was sleeping.
Then she said.
“Tomorrow will be easier.”
Dad was still alive.
I felt cold.
Daniel continued.
“Gregory said almost done.”
Morales wrote every word.
Then another technician entered.
“We found something in the archived medication system.”
Gregory’s login had accessed Dad’s chart seventeen minutes before the IV bag switch.
A medication order was created.
Then deleted.
The drug name matched the sedative found in Dad’s original toxicology report.
The authorizing physician field contained Avery’s credentials.
Avery claimed someone must have used his password.
Gregory claimed he was following orders.
Mom claimed she knew nothing.
Three people.
Three stories.
May you like
One dead man.
And one autistic seventeen-year-old who had been watching all of them.
