Medical records found in Richmond dumpster
Carl Swanger says Saturday he found 65 boxes filled with patient information, including social security and credit card numbers. He says immediately he knew something wasn’t right.
The boxes were stuffed in a dumpster at AAA Rent-A-Space in Richmond, according to Swanger. He took them to Baptist Health where he thought the records came from.
The hospital says the paperwork is actually from Richmond Radiology, which it says closed in the early 2000s.
AAA Rent-A-Space says the storage unit that contained the records was abandoned sometime around July 2011 but everything inside just sat there until this weekend when the manager says someone wanted the rent the space.
He says an employee, likely not knowing what was in the boxes, must have tossed them in the trash to clear the unit for the other customer.
Baptist Health workers say the boxes were taped up and secured. They say someone probably wouldn’t have known they were records by looking at the boxes.
They say they are now keeping all the records until it can get someone who used to own Richmond Radiology to properly destroy them.
Workers say shredding is the appropriate way to dispose of documents.
ABC 36 reached out to a doctor who used to work Richmond Radiology but have not heard back at the time of publishing this article.
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