A 75-year-old New York woman desperately hopes someone will return a sentimental ring she says was stolen from her in a hospital emergency room.
A New York hospital worker has been accused of stealing a ring from the finger of an elderly cancer patient, according to authorities.
Caitlin Mullaney, 36, pleaded not guilty this week to a felony larceny count filed by the Albany County District Attorney's Office.
The 75-year-old patient, Tricia Fitzpatrick, has stage four lung cancer and had been taken to Albany Medical Center's emergency room for a CAT scan, when she felt someone tugging on her finger.
“I was lying there, with my eyes closed, and I think to an observer it would seem that I was sleeping," Fitzpatrick told WTEN-TV. "So all of a sudden, I felt this hand, fingers closed around my finger, around the ring, and started pulling it off," she said.
The ring, with a row of diamonds, represented her three children.
Fitzpatrick, who lives in a nursing home in upstate New York, said she hopes someone will return her ring so she can pass it on to her daughter, Kim Perrella.
"One day I’m gonna be gone. She saw that ring on me my whole life," the mother said. "She knows what it represents to me. It’ll mean something to her. I don’t have anything of value that I could leave her."
Police checked pawn shops in the area, but didn't find the ring, she said.
Perella, seated next to her mother, added, "We just want the ring back."
In a statement, the hospital said Mullaney was no longer on staff.
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