Pair plead guilty in woman’s death

A registered nurse and a Spokane Valley adult care provider have pleaded guilty to criminal mistreatment in connection with the death of an 88-year-old woman in their care.

The woman, Gertrude “Trudy” Pohle, died from a severe infection in her leg.

Karen M. Reichardt, 55, and 34-year-old Jeffrey Wade Hoffschneider pleaded guilty to the gross misdemeanor charge of third-degree criminal mistreatment. Each received a sentence of 365 days in jail, but all that jail time was suspended, Spokane County Deputy Prosecutor Patrick Johnson said.

Reichardt, a nurse, originally had been charged with second-degree manslaughter in connection with the Aug. 15, 2004, death of Pohle.

Pohle had been in the care of Hoffschneider at the now-closed adult care facility Serenity House, at 14815 E. Mission.

“That is a big reduction in the charges,” Johnson acknowledged. “But evidence drives cases. In this case, the doctors, including the medical examiner, were not able to tie in the negligence with the death.”

Reichardt could not be reached Friday for comment. Last year, the state Nursing Care Quality Assurance Commission put Reichardt on 12 months’ probation after she signed paperwork acknowledging that her care in the Pohle case fell below standards.

According to Spokane County Sheriff’s Office and state reports, Pohle’s infection had turned her left leg and foot black, and the odor from it was so strong that hospital staff had to wear masks to enter the emergency room. The wounds also became infested with insects.

The photos of the wounds “take your breath away,” Johnson said. “It looks like somebody’s leg you pulled out of a fire.”

Pohle served in the Navy during World War II and later worked for Walt Disney Studios. She had no children.

In the investigation, Pohle’s physician said he had not been asked to see her since Aug. 3, 2003. Instead, her nephews, James and Dennis Pohle – a firefighter with the Spokane Fire Department – apparently had been relying on medical advice from the nurse, Reichardt said.

In addition to Gertrude Pohle, a state investigator found that a second resident in Serenity House had sores on both buttocks and a third resident had a wound with a “bad smelling, yellow drainage,” according to a state report. The facility had only four patients.

Spokane County sheriff’s Detective Fred Ruetsch interviewed Hoffschneider after Pohle’s infection was discovered. Five times during their first conversation, Hoffschneider said, “I’m screwed,” and repeatedly asked if he was going to jail, according to Ruetsch’s report.

Hoffschneider said he did his best to treat Pohle’s leg with a method he learned from Reichardt. He said he used a spray bottle full of water and “wound cleaner,” a substance he could not describe or show the detective, saying he had used the last of it.

Hoffschneider said “he only wanted what was best for Gertrude, and he was sick about what had happened but that he had made the nurse aware of everything. Therefore, he thought all was well,” Ruetsch wrote.

Pohle’s wound was first documented in mid-June 2004. After almost two months, Hoffschneider said, Pohle’s leg wounds “were so bad they were infected with maggots and he could no longer stand it,” so he called an ambulance to take her to Valley Hospital and Medical Center until Aug. 4, 2004.

Registered nurse Mary Ann Moore, who was working at the Valley hospital that day, said that in 33 years of nursing she had never seen “this level of gangrene in a living patient before” and “reported what she felt was abuse or neglect to the hospital social worker,” according to records.

Hoffschneider’s number has been disconnected, and he could not be reached for comment Friday.

The state investigation found that Reichardt, who recently retired as a lieutenant commander in the U.S. Naval Reserves, failed to appropriately delegate treatment to Pohle’s caregivers and practiced outside the scope of a registered nurse when she treated Pohle’s infected leg without consulting a doctor.

Reichardt, in a brief interview last August with The Spokesman-Review, disputed those findings.

Reichardt said Pohle “did not want further care. The nephews made that known,” Reichardt said. “It was their belief that they were following her directions. It was the nephews’ call to decide what to do.”

Neither James nor Dennis Pohle could be reached Friday.

Dr. John Sestero, who was Pohle’s physician, told Ruetsch he was never notified about the leg wounds, which he said were treatable. “In his opinion,” Ruetsch wrote, “this was a definite case of neglect.”