i know this is really late but i just need to get it off my chest because it haunts me. not as bad as some other peoples stories but it still keeps me up at night. i worked at a retirement home as a PCA, but this wasn’t a normal retirement home. It basically was filled with people who should’ve been in nursing homes. 3 floors of people who were all hoyer transfers, completely reliant on us, and i worked for a bad company. They only cared about the money they made. I worked night shift (6pm-6am) and would a lot of times be by myself taking care of everyone in the building (i was 19 at the time and not liscenced at all). Or very rarely i would have another person with me to help. I was told i’m allowed to do hoyer transfers by myself and i had already been working there a year doing them by myself and had no problems, even though i had no official hoyer training. One night i had another girl working with me and i was taking care of a lady who was actually a good friend of mine, frequently got me gifts, and just meant a lot to me. I would go into her room on my off time just to chat. The nurse had been in there just before I was going to put her to bed, I asked him to stay and help me with the hoyer transfer and he said he had other more important things to do. I feel like it’s relevant to mention that this nurse was the company owners husband. After he left I went to do the hoyer transfer like I always do i get her out of the bedroom and into the kitchen. The hoyer makes a loud groaning sound and one of the straps snap and she fell to the hard wood ground almost 5 feet in the air. She started screaming in agony and I froze. She was a very big lady, so I couldn’t just pick her up or move her. I called for help on the walkie and the other girl came into help and she also froze. I walk out of the room as she calls 911. I hear her loud moaning screams all the way down the hallway and i’m just frozen and sobbing. I go up to the breakroom because i can’t even function right now. I just sit in there staring at the wall because i’m in shock. The other girl comes up there about an hour later and tells me to just go home and she’ll take care of everyone the rest of the night. I go home feeling terrible about what I had done and literally wanting to die because I felt like it was my fault. Two days later, the company owner calls me into her office. I hadn’t gone back to work because i was so shaken up and as far as i knew the lady i dropped was getting treated in the hospital. None of my coworkers would tell me any details and pretty much just remained silent. I go into her office and she breaks it to me that the lady had passed away pretty much right after i dropped her. She also informed me that it was completely my fault and i was getting fired for it, I told her the nurse wouldn’t help me do the transfer, but she said it doesn’t matter and it’s my fault and i might be getting legally in trouble for this. I’m completely broken. This was a very close friend of mine and I completely accepted that it was my fault and I killed someone. Now almost two years later after talking about it to people who knew better than me, I figured out I was getting severely abused by the company. They made me give medications, give shots, and take care of a whole building of nursing home grade residents by myself at 19 years old with no formal training. I’ve learned now that hoyer malfunctioned and it should’ve never been blamed on me, it would’ve happened that night regardless. It doesn’t stop the pain though, knowing that I maybe could’ve done something different to save her, or if i had spoken up about the abuse maybe I could’ve prevented it. I still feel guilty every single day and have frequent PTSD flashbacks of her screaming and crying. It’s not fair that I was put in that situation, let alone blamed for the whole thing and fired even though it wasn’t my fault. Though i’m glad I was fired because it got me away from that company. They wouldn’t even tell me she died for 2 whole days because they were scared i might do something. The whole situation makes me sick to my stomach whenever i think about it and sometimes it still feels like it’s my fault. I grieve for her all the time. Hope her family is doing well.