Story highlights
Anthony Iuso went to the emergency room at a Bronx hospital with a thumb injury
He was found four days later in a locked bathroom
"We are so aggravated and so upset," his mother says
“What the hell went wrong?” wonders Maria Iuso.
She still can’t understand why it took five days for anyone to find her son, dead, in a locked bathroom at Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx.
That’s the same hospital where Anthony Iuso, 44, worked as an operating room technician, cleaning its surgical rooms. But last Thursday, he went to the emergency room there for a different reason – his thumb was swollen, his mother said.
When the doctor was ready for him, he was no longer there.
It wasn’t until Monday that his body was found in a locked bathroom after hospital employees looked at surveillance video, Maria Iuso said.
“We are so aggravated and so upset,” she told CNN. “This is something that shouldn’t have ever happened in the hospital.”
Anthony, who lived in the basement of his mother’s home, wasn’t heard from Thursday night or Friday so the family filed a missing person report with police.
Iuso’s mother also said that her daughter tried to call the hospital on Thursday and Friday, but they did not receive any information.
Montefiore Medical Center had no comment on the incident other than that they and the New York police are investigating, according to Maria Medina, a hospital spokeswoman.
“Don’t they clean the bathroom? Dont they open the door?” Maria Iuso told CNN. “I’m so devastated, depressed, disgusted … It’s like a dream.”
According to a missing person poster issued by NYPD’s 49th precinct, Iuso was last seen going to work on Wednesday morning wearing blue hospital scrubs.
A New York City Medical Examiner examined the decedent Monday, according to Julie Bolcer, director of public affairs for the NYC Chief Medical Examiner’s Office.
The cause and manner of death are pending further studies, Bolcer said.
CNN’s Kristina Sgueglia contributed to this report