The woman was one of three residents of the Atria Park Senior Living Facility in San Mateo rushed to the hospital after drinking the caustic liquid, KRON-TV reported. The employees involved have been fired as the home investigates internally and cooperates with local authorities, the facility said. “We are working with local authorities, who have informed us that a resident has died,” Atria said in a statement to the station. “Our deepest condolences go out to the family.” The resident who died was Gertrude Elizabeth Murison Maxwell, her daughter told a news outlet. KRON A source told NBC Bay Area that the inedible liquid may have been mistaken for grape juice. “It could have been a mistake,” the source involved in the investigation told the local NBC affiliate. “A pitcher of grape juice is what one thought he had picked up and poured into glasses, but it was a kind of cleansing liquid.” The victim’s daughter, Marcia Cutchin, told a local television station that her mother Gertrude Elizabeth Murison Maxwell was the dead resident. She said the nursing home told her family the substance her mother was given was an “alkaline cleaning solution that eats protein.” Maxwell suffers from dementia and was unable to feed herself, Cutchin said. When her mother arrived at the hospital, she had “severe blisters in her mouth, throat and esophagus,” Cutchin said. “A lot of people, like my mother, you have to hold a cup to her mouth and put it in her mouth,” Cutchin told KRON-TV. The station said San Mateo police were investigating and had no additional information. Maxwell is survived by eight children and 20 grandchildren. With Post cables
