This
is true story from the newspaper The Cape Times (South Africa):
"For several months, our nurses have been baffled to find a
patient dead in the same bed every Friday morning" a
spokeswoman for the Pelonomi Hospital (Free State, South Africa)
told reporters.
"There was no apparent cause for any of the deaths, and
extensive checks on the air conditioning system, and a search
for possible bacterial infection, failed to reveal any
clues." "However, further inquiries have now revealed
the cause of these deaths...
"It seems that every Friday morning a cleaning lady would
enter the ward, remove the plug that powered the patient's life
support system, plug her floor polisher into the vacant socket,
then go about her business. When she had finished her chores,
she would plug the life support machine back in and leave,
unaware that the patient was now dead. She could not, after all,
hear the screams and eventual death rattle over the whirring of
her polisher".
"We are sorry, and have sent a strong letter to the cleaner
in question. Further, the Free State Health and Welfare
Department is arranging for an electrician to fit an extra
socket, so there should be no repetition of this incident. The
inquiry is now closed." (Cape Times)
The headline of the newspaper story was, "Cleaner Polishes
Off Patients"
Author Unknown