SACRAMENTO-

It’s a pledge every nurse takes: the Florence Nightingale pledge, to elevate the standard of their profession and to devote themselves to the welfare of those committed to their care.

Then there’s last weeks 911 call from Glenwood Gardens in Bakersfield.

Glenwood Gardens: “We can’t do that.”

911: “Are we just going to let this lady die?”

When 87-year-old Lorraine Bayless collapsed at Glenwood Garden’s independent living facility in Bakersfield, the employee who called 911 refused to give her CPR.

911: “We need to get CPR started, that’s not enough, okay? Let me…”

Glenwood Gardens: “Yeah, we can’t do CPR at this facility.”

911: “O.K., the hand the phone… hand… hand the phone to a passer-by…”

Monday, Executive Director of Glenwood Gardens Jeffery Toomer defended his employee, saying that when there’s a health emergency the policy is to “call emergency personnel for assistance and to wait with the individual needing attention until such personnel arrives. That is the protocol we followed.”

“The question is whether she’s a nurse or not. Because if she is, their policy’s irrelevant. I hope the local police know that,” said Tricia Hunter, an registered nurse herself and the executive director of the American Nurses Association, California.

Hunter helped pass the law that makes it illegal identifying yourself as a nurse if you aren’t one.

911: “This woman’s not breathing enough. She’s gonna die if we don’t get this started. Do you understand

Glenwood Gardens: “I understand. I am a nurse.”

“Obviously, it reflects badly on the profession because everybody’s assuming it’s a nurse. We don’t even know that it is,” Hunter said.

A spokesman for the state’s licensing body agrees.  He says they haven’t been able to confirm that the woman was what she said she was.