Police launched an investigation into an alleged sexual assault of a 63-year-old female heart attack patient at a Santa Ana hospital.
A man went into the woman's room at Kindred Hospital on Friday and allegedly touched her, the woman's daughter told NBC4.
The patient's daughter asked NBC4 not to reveal her identity out of respect to her mother.
"She's a tough woman," the daughter said.
The daughter says her mother told her the man spoke in Spanish. There were three other female patients in the same hospital room.
The man told her to stay quiet, not to say anything and nothing bad would happen. But it happened three times, the daughter said.
Santa Ana police have assigned a detective to the case and hospital officials said in a statement they are trying to determine if the event occurred at their facility.
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Hospital officials said they've launched an internal investigation.
The patient's daughter is worried her mother was singled out for one reason.
She's legally blind. She can only see shadows, the daughter said.
What concerns the daughter is whether there have been other victims.
There is now security in her mother's room around the clock and only female nurses are allowed to care for her.
"She's afraid. She's embarrassed," the daughter said. "She wants this person punished.
"They're supposed to be taken care of ... You just never know."
The patient is scheduled to go to a rehab facility soon and will be released Saturday.
