Nurse imposter arrested after treating over 4,000 patients without a license: Sheriff
A woman in Florida was arrested after posing as a nurse and treating over 4,000 patients without a license, according to the Flagler County Sheriff's Office.
Autumn Bardisa, 29, was arrested on Tuesday after pretending to be a registered nurse and treating 4,486 individuals at a local hospital from July 2023 until she was fired on Jan. 22, the sheriff's office announced in a press release on Wednesday.
"This is one of the most disturbing cases of medical fraud we've ever investigated," Sheriff Rick Staly said in a statement on Wednesday.
Back in July 2023, Bardisa was hired as an advanced nurse technician, working under the supervision of a registered nurse, officials said. When she applied for the position, she stated she was an "education first" registered nurse, meaning she "passed the required schooling to become a registered nurse but had not passed the national exam to obtain her license," officials said.
She then told the hospital she had passed her exams and provided a license number "matching an individual with her first name, Autumn, but with a different last name," the sheriff's office said. Bardisa explained the discrepancy, saying she "had recently gotten married and had a new last name," according to officials. The hospital requested to see her marriage license to confirm her identity, but she never provided it to them, officials said.
When Bardisa was offered a promotion in January, officials said a fellow employee checked her license's status and discovered she had "an expired certified nursing assistant license" and immediately reported the findings to hospital administrators.
After the hospital investigated, they learned that Bardisa had also never provided her marriage license per their previous requests, officials said. After terminating Bardisa on Jan. 22, hospital officials contacted the sheriff's office, which then began an investigation.
Officials found that the nurse Bardisa stole the license from is someone at a different hospital and had attended school with Bardisa, but the two did not "personally know one another," officials said.
On Tuesday, Bardisa was arrested for seven counts of practicing a health care profession without a license and seven counts of fraudulent use of personal identification, officials said.
She was transported to the Sheriff Perry Hall Inmate Detention Facility, where she is being held on a $70,000 bond, officials said.
This incident comes after a Pennsylvania nurse was arrested in July after using 20 aliases -- including the identities and credentials of four confirmed nurses from southern states -- and seven different Social Security numbers.
Another similar incident occurred back in Nov. 2024 when a 44-year-old woman impersonated a registered nurse at a hospital in Burbank, California.
Jail records do not indicate Bardisa's next court appearance. It is not immediately clear whether Bardisa has an attorney who can speak on her behalf.
