Family of missing deaf, mute woman Samantha Primus ‘going through hell’
The distraught family of a missing 46-year-old deaf, mute and autistic woman says loved ones are “going through hell” since she was last seen three weeks ago.
Samantha Primus — originally of St. Lucia — has been missing since Christmas Eve, when Queens Hospital Center released her with a list of homeless shelters, her family claims.
“I am afraid,” sister Juliana Primus, 58, told The Post on Thursday, noting Friday “will be three weeks since that occurred. We have been going through hell.”
The family is hoping the public will help in its desperate search, she said.
Samantha left her sister Joanna Peck’s house — where she was staying for the holidays while her mom was away — in Elmont, Long Island, early Dec. 23, Juliana Primus said.
The family suspects Samantha — who is on the autism spectrum — was trying to get back to her mom’s Brooklyn home, where she lived, she said.
“Because of her autism, she thinks that she wanted to go home,” she said, adding Samantha has “a one-track mind.”
“She woke up early in the morning, took her bags and proceeded to leave,” her sister recounted. “And it was so cold that day.”
On the evening of Dec. 23 — when temperatures dropped to 18 degrees — a bystander found Samantha on 190th Street and Hillside Avenue in Queens “on the ground like she needed help,” Juliana Primus said Nassau County police had told her.
EMS took Samantha to the hospital, where she saw two doctors before they released her at 2 a.m. Christmas Eve — when temperatures dipped to a frigid 7 degrees, the family learned from police, Juliana Primus said.
“I strongly believe that they did the wrong thing,” she said of the hospital, adding: “They are making it very difficult for us to get any information from them.”
Juliana Primus said the family was told they needed to get legal guardianship over Samantha in order to get information from the hospital — but courts informed them they couldn’t get that status while Samantha is missing.
“I have been walking the streets for hours every day — combing through the subways, walking at night looking for her in the parks, on the streets,” the sister said, adding she’s handed out over 500 fliers.
The family has called local hospitals and visited shelters without luck, Juliana Primus said.
“I have not slept,” she said.
Primus family lawyer Sanford Rubenstein told The Post: “The public help is desperately needed to find this missing disabled woman.”
The family was expected to hold a news conference at 392 Nostrand Ave. in Brooklyn, where the missing woman was last seen. The family said they learned of a sighting of their sister there when someone called in a tip to them.
“If she was discharged on her own from Queens Hospital Center simply with a list of shelters without appropriate supervision, then legal action for damages will be appropriate,” Rubenstein told The Post.
New York City Health & Hospitals, which runs Queens Hospital Center, responded that it “provides high quality care to all its patients.”
“We see patients who need various levels of care in all our emergency department and afford them the confidentiality of treatment as the law provides,” its statement said. The agency noted HIPAA regulations prevent the disclosure of details about a patient’s care without the person’s consent.
The city Law Department didn’t immediately return a request for comment.
