A grandmother with dementia was found to have died as the care home looking after her served her washing up liquid instead of juice.
Gertrude Elizabeth Murison Maxwell, 93, was at the Atria Park Senior Living Facility in San Mateo, California, in the US, when she was somehow given washing liquid to drink instead of juice.
Suffering from dementia Gertrude was left with "severe blistering of her mouth and throat and oesophagus."
Her condition, her daughter Marcia Cutchin revealed, meant that she was unable to drink for herself and had to be hand-fed by her carers.
"Many people, like my mother, you have to hold a cup to her mouth and tip it into her mouth," Marcia added.
Her death leaves a hole in the family, with Gertrude survived by eight children and 20 grandchildren.
The facility revealed the employees have been suspended as local authorities investigate what happened.
Atria said to KRON-TV: "We have been working with local authorities, who have informed us that one resident passed away. Our sincerest condolences are with the family."
A source informed NBC that they thought the toxic substance could have been confused for something like grape juice by someone working there.
They said: "There may have been a mistake. A jug of grape juice is what somebody thought they had picked up and poured into glasses, but it was some sort of cleaning fluid."
California has had a concerning record on deaths in care homes recently, particularly due to the Covid pandemic that ran through homes in 2021.
Around 9,400 died from Covid in cases that were described as "truly appalling."
The state's Assembly Health Committee Chair Jim Wood said to California Healthline: "The number of covid infections and deaths that happened in skilled nursing facilities in California is truly appalling. I expect better from us."
More funding was called for to address a range of problems in the state.
Professor of social and behavioural sciences at the University of California-San Francisco, Charlene Harrington, said: "There are a lot of problems people have complained about for a long time. This [Covid] an opportunity to correct those problems."
She added: "Some of these problems that we saw in the pandemic could have been avoided if nursing homes had adequate staffing,”
It is not clear if the incident at the Atria Park facility in San Mateo was caused by pre-existing problems or was just a freak accident, but San Mateo police hope to get to the bottom of what happened.
