FORT WORTH, Texas — The nurse injured in an elevator accident at John Peter Smith Hospital in Fort Worth is now out of intensive care and conscious, her attorney told WFAA on Wednesday.
Carren Stratford, who's in her 50s and has two adult children, was in a coma for 15 days after the Jan. 20 incident, and she remained in and out of consciousness last week, according to an update from her attorney, Frank Branson, and hospital officials.
On Tuesday, attorneys representing Stratford say she was able to mouth, "I love you" to her family.
Stratford is now at an intermediate level of care at the hospital – a step between intensive care and general care. She is undergoing extensive therapy, including speech therapy, her attorneys told WFAA.
In a news conference, last week, JPS CEO and President Robert Earley said Stratford was trying to get on an elevator on Jan. 20 and it didn't stop going up.
She had put her right foot into the elevator, and as she did, the elevator continued going up and injured her.
Stratford suffered hypoxic brain damage when the brain is deprived of oxygen, and she had to undergo multiple surgeries, Branson said.
"As a Level 1 trauma center, all of our goals – whether you clean the halls or are an administrator – is to keep people alive. So the heartache and the pain of one of your own being in that situation is devastating," Earley said.
Earley said a lawsuit against the elevator company, ThyssenKrupp Elevator, is still a possibility. Earley called Thyssenkrup "unresponsive" in the incident, saying the company did not return phone calls from JPS officials for eight days.
"We are not elevator experts," Earley said. "You hire elevator experts, and we thought we had elevator experts. We've got a contract that clearly spells out what elevator companies are supposed to do to help with the safety and security of everyone that works here."
In a statement after last week's news conference, ThyssenKrupp said it was "deeply saddened to learn of the injuries" suffered by Stratford.
"As we have just received the details surrounding her tragic accident, it wouldn’t be appropriate to provide further comment until we have had a chance to review and better understand what happened on January 20, 2019," the company statement said.
Stratford was injured on one of the hospital's "purple" elevators, which have remained out of service since the accident.
The elevator, which began operation in 1993, passed inspection on April 4, 2018, according to a report from the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation. The report noted three violations – no fire extinguisher in an elevator machine room, a top light not guarded and a missing duct cover – but the violations weren't deemed to be significant and wouldn't affect the operation of the elevator.
"She would bend over backward to help you."
Stratford's accident is weighing on Lottie Everett and Bridget Gibbs.
Everett is a nurse practitioner who often works with Stratford at different hospitals, both are contract nurses. Everett is not a nurse at JPS.
Gibbs owns a medical staffing company and has helped Stratford secure nursing contract jobs at hospitals in the DFW area for 14 years.
Everett has known Stratford for around 10 years.
"If you needed anything, she would bend over backward to help you," Everett said. "When you're in those high-stress situations you have to know that this person standing next to you is someone you can count on, and Carren was one of those people."
Everett said that patients particularly were fond of Stratford.
"She would get hoorah's written out to her from her patients about how loving and compassionate she was--because she would take the time to sit down with them and spend time with them," Everett said.
Gibbs said that she would speak with Stratford often, especially if she needed to grab an extra shift at a hospital to earn some extra money.
"She was recently saving up some money to go to Kenya to visit her family," Gibbs said. "Before the accident, she was trying to get me to go with her to see her family."
"She said, 'just pay the flight you'll meet my family, and we'll take you around,' and I was like ah that sounds amazing," Gibbs said. "She's just a really fun and kind person."
Everett said that Stratford and she would often spend breaks together talking about faith, Kenya, and their children.
"We would talk about mission trips, bible studies, volunteering at church, or whatever she was up to," Everett said.
"There was a day where I had accidentally scheduled myself on my daughter's birthday, and I asked her to switch a shift and she said 'absolutely'...no questions asked."
Both said Stratford's loving smile leaves behind the biggest impression, and added that it's hard to envision someone so wonderful going through something so tragic.
"I just keep going over and over, what happened in the elevator and what might have been going through her mind," Gibbs said.
Everett added that she knows several nurses at JPS and said they've voiced to her that many have been stressed since Stratford's accident.
"A lot of them told me they don't want to get in the elevator, yet they have to," Everett said. "It's a situation where if I get in this elevator, is it going to be the last time I'm on this elevator.
And while JPS and ThyssenKrupp play the blame game, Everett said that the hospital should do more to ensure that nurses only have to focus on their patients, not their safety.
"That's something you shouldn't have to fear," Everett said.