In the end, there were no words. None that escaped the Hollywood nursing home where eight patients died last week after Hurricane Irma knocked out power to the air conditioning system. None that reached rescue workers or loved ones who could have come to help if they had only known.
A ninth victim died Tuesday, nearly a week after the tragedy at the Rehabilitation Center in Hollywood Hills began to publicly unfold.
His name was Carlos Canal, 93, who brought his family of five from Cuba to Miami in 1961 and refused to leave the area even after his son moved to Georgia and his daughter to Texas. Both offered to take him in after he fell ill two years ago and required constant care and supervision, but South Florida was his home and he was determined to stay, said his son, Mario Canal.
“He did not want to leave Miami,” his son said. “This guy was strong. That’s why he was the last one to go.”
Canal worked various jobs in the 50 years after he came to Florida. He worked in hotels. He sold products for Goya. He was a milkman. But his dream was to run a tobacco shop, and he achieved it in the 1990s. For a decade, he owned the Havanaland shop on West Flagler Street, his son said. It thrilled him.
The shop closed in 2003. Canal continued to work various jobs until about two years ago, when his health began to deteriorate. His oldest son died in the 1990s. He and his wife separated about the same time the shop closed, though they never divorced, his son said. He came to the Rehabilitation Center in 2015.
Canal and his son spoke often. Their conversations followed a similar pattern every time — “How’s the family? How’s work? Are you still driving a truck? OK, bye.”
After Canal was evacuated from the center last Wednesday, a friend of his son’s paid him a visit. Though Canal was unable to speak at that point, he became animated when he heard his son’s name. But they would never speak again.
“I just can’t believe it,” his son said.
“These were people,” said Jeffrey Nova, whose mother Gail was the fourth to die. “Old or not, they were human beings, and they deserve to be remembered as people.”
Gail Nova, 70, was the youngest to lose her life. Her son said he wanted her private life to remain private, but he was willing to share some details — she was an X-ray technician at Jackson Memorial hospital, a fan of spicy food and an unapologetic extrovert who made friends easily. “There was no fear of saying hello,” he said.
She came to the Rehabilitation Center at Hollywood Hills eight years ago after medical complications rendered her in need of around-the-clock care.
If the delirium of baking in the heat at the nursing home after the storm didn’t incapacitate her, Gail Nova would have been vocal about her discomfort and the health threat she and other patients were facing, her son said.
“She has a voice,” he said. “She would have yelled. She would have made sure she kept yelling until she and others got what they needed.”
He doesn’t know whether that happened. After the storm, with power out, curfews and fallen trees restricting movement and phone service spotty, Nova was unable to talk to his mother. He learned of her death when a Sun Sentinel reporter called him looking for a comment.
On the same floor of the nursing home as Gail Nova law Bobby “Foxx” Owens, 84. He was the fifth to lose his fight to survive. He was pronounced dead Wednesday morning at 6:57 a.m., eight minutes after Nova.
But unlike Nova, Owens almost certainly was not able to communicate his discomfort. The heartbreak, according to his family, was that he was just as certainly aware of his suffering.
Owens suffered a stroke a decade ago, rendering him unable to speak, said his granddaughter, Tynisha Owens, of West Park. He had trouble breathing, but no trouble understanding his surroundings.
Bobby Owens was a family man — five children (two of whom preceded him in death), nine grandchildren, 20 great-grandchildren. He worked as a janitor at Jackson Memorial Hospital for more than 30 years. His granddaughter said he earned the “Foxx” nickname because he dressed well and “the ladies thought he was attractive.”
“He did have a great life, and we hate that it had to end the way the way that it did,” his granddaughter said. “He was probably aware of the situation Tuesday and Wednesday. He definitely knew what was going on but couldn’t call for help, because he didn’t speak.”
His family checked in on him before the storm. They were reassured by nursing home staff that things would be okay. A week later, they received a news alert that there were deaths at Hollywood Hills.
Miguel Antonio Franco, 92, died two minutes after Owens. His daughter, Nora, spoke briefly to a reporter last Wednesday. “It’s a dream,” she said through tears. “I never expected that. Oh please no, no, no.”
Her mother, another patient at the nursing home, survived. She had lived there for eight years. Her husband would visit her often before becoming a patient there himself earlier this year.
On Tuesday, Nora Franco again politely declined a full interview. “We just got back from burying him,” she said. “Please, not now.”
Carolyn Eatherly’s death at 5 a.m. came shortly after rescue workers realized they were dealing with an unfolding tragedy. The second victim, Eatherly, 78, was an Alzheimer’s patient who sometimes could not undertand why she couldn’t just leave Hollywood Hills with her best friend, Linda Horton.
“She believed in God, she had a strong faith in God,” Horton said. “And she liked going places, going to the Keys — she would have been devastated knowing what happened to the Keys — and she liked going to Disney World.”
Eatherly was born and raised in Kentucky. Her childhood was rough, Horton said: Her father, a policeman, committed suicide in the family home when Eatherly was a child. She was an only child who never married or had children.
She graduated from Western Kentucky University, where she studied the arts and dreamed of being a painter.
“She was never able to do anything with it, really,” Horton said, and instead made a living working in accounting for various companies.
After her diagnosis, Horton hoped the women could stay together, but the disease made it difficult.
“I couldn’t take care of her. I worked and I couldn’t leave her at home because she would go and I would never know where she was,” Horton said.
Horton said she stopped visiting several years ago because whenever she did, Eatherly picked up her purse and announced she was ready to leave and go home.
“I said ‘no honey, you have to stay here,’ “Horton said.
The crying, she said, was unbearable.
Albertina Vega was first to die — her body was discovered before 3 a.m. Her death was the last to be formally connected to the sweltering conditions because of her age and poor health.
She was the oldest victim, due to turn 100 in October. Family from California had planned to fly in for the celebration, a family member said.
Vega suffered from dementia, said Carmen Fernandez, who is married to Vega’s cousin and lives a short walk away from the Rehabilitation Center at Hollywood Hills.
Vega was a retied seamstress whose husband died in 1986. They had no children. She was losing her vision along with her memory.
Fernandez said she would have taken Vega out of the nursing home if she had known what was happening after the power loss Sunday, but word of what was taking place never reached her until it was too late.Efforts to reach friends and family of the other three victims — Estella Hendricks, 71, Betty Hibbard, 84 and Manuel Mario Mendieta, 96, have been unsuccessful.
A ninth victim, Carlos Canal, 93, who had been evacuated from the center, died Tuesday.
Multiple local and state agencies are investigating the circumstances leading to the deaths.
“I just want accountability,” said Jeffrey Nova. “People need to be held responsible. Licenses need to be lost. Laws need to change. These were people, not just names of the dead.”
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Staff writers Lisa Huriash, Linda Trischitta, Erika Pesantes and Susannah Bryan contributed to this report.
rolmeda@sunsentinel.com, 954-356-4457, Twitter @rolmeda
