Cape Coral children's medical documents found along streets
Hundreds of children’s medical documents found along Cape Coral streets
Reporter: Justin Kase
Writer: Rachel Murphy
Published: July 21, 2023
Updated: July 21, 2023
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Hundreds of children’s private records were littered along the streets of Cape Coral.
Police picked up most of the documents after they were reported Friday.
“As a parent to two young children in a public school, I would be livid if I found out that their information had been scattered across the roadway for anybody to come across,” said Bethany Saavedra, a resident in Babcock Ranch.
WINK News called a doctor listed on one of the documents. The doctor explained that the document was related to a physical he did for a student last year, required for school.
He said that the parents of the child take the document to the school or health department.
Saavedra described what she saw along the roads, “Thousands. Yeah. Over 1000. Easily. They were scattered for a quarter of a mile from the intersection back that way.”
The Lee County School District sent a statement indicating that they’re working to identify the impacted families and communicate with them.
A law professor at Florida Gulf Coast University said legal consequences depend on what happened and who is responsible.
“Find out what happened. They need to report it. They need to assure that it doesn’t happen. Again, there may be some legal ramifications for that, depending on the circumstances of did they properly care for this information? Was it improperly stored? How did this happen?” Dr. Pamela Seay said.
According to Seay, there could be civil ramifications for whoever is responsible if any of the documents are used to harm any of the families or children involved, if it can be traced back to the incident.
WINK News reached out to Cape Coral police about what happened and they have not responded.
Reporter: Justin Kase
Writer: Rachel Murphy
Published: July 21, 2023
Updated: July 21, 2023
Clipboard
Play Video
Hundreds of children’s private records were littered along the streets of Cape Coral.
Police picked up most of the documents after they were reported Friday.
“As a parent to two young children in a public school, I would be livid if I found out that their information had been scattered across the roadway for anybody to come across,” said Bethany Saavedra, a resident in Babcock Ranch.
WINK News called a doctor listed on one of the documents. The doctor explained that the document was related to a physical he did for a student last year, required for school.
He said that the parents of the child take the document to the school or health department.
Saavedra described what she saw along the roads, “Thousands. Yeah. Over 1000. Easily. They were scattered for a quarter of a mile from the intersection back that way.”
The Lee County School District sent a statement indicating that they’re working to identify the impacted families and communicate with them.
A law professor at Florida Gulf Coast University said legal consequences depend on what happened and who is responsible.
“Find out what happened. They need to report it. They need to assure that it doesn’t happen. Again, there may be some legal ramifications for that, depending on the circumstances of did they properly care for this information? Was it improperly stored? How did this happen?” Dr. Pamela Seay said.
According to Seay, there could be civil ramifications for whoever is responsible if any of the documents are used to harm any of the families or children involved, if it can be traced back to the incident.
WINK News reached out to Cape Coral police about what happened and they have not responded.
