Harmar Village Health & Rehab: Empty Crash Carts - PA
That was the emergency response available at Harmar Village Health & Rehab Center. The crash carts, which are supposed to be stocked with emergency equipment and checked daily, had been logging "no items available" for nearly two weeks straight across both floors of the facility. Some days, staff hadn't even bothered to document whether they'd checked at all.
The resident, identified in inspection records as Resident R1, survived. But the facility's own nursing supervisor confirmed during the inspection that if high-level oxygen replacement had been available, it could have provided additional time to clear the airway. It wasn't available. The crash cart on the third floor had no items on it.
Inspectors from the Pennsylvania Department of Health arrived on November 13, 2025, following a complaint. What they found in the emergency cart checklists was a month-long record of failure.
On the third floor, the checklist for November showed no documentation that any check was completed on the 1st, 3rd, 4th, 6th, 7th. On the days staff did sign off, the entry read the same each time: no items available. November 2nd, no items. November 5th, no items. November 8th through the 12th, five consecutive days, no items.
The second floor was worse. For the first eight days of November, there was no documentation that anyone had checked the cart at all. Not a single entry. November 9th showed a check with no items available. November 10th, no documentation again. The 11th and 12th, no items available.
When inspectors asked a licensed practical nurse on the third floor to produce the crash cart checklists the following day, the nurse handed over a binder. Inside was the checklist for August 2025. Multiple dates on that form were also blank. There were no checklists at all for September or October.
Three months of emergency preparedness records, gone.
The choking incident is what brought inspectors to the building, and the details of what happened to Resident R1 sit at the center of the citation. A licensed practical nurse identified as Employee E1 performed what the inspection report calls a finger sweep, a technique used to manually remove a visible object from a choking person's mouth. Whole pills came out. The resident's oxygen saturation had dropped and rose only slightly afterward on the concentrator.
The registered nurse supervisor, Employee E2, told inspectors that higher-level oxygen equipment, the kind that should have been on the crash cart, might have bought more time to clear the airway. Whether that additional time would have changed the outcome, no one can say. What the records show is that the cart was empty, and had been for as long as anyone had written anything down.
The facility's administrator and director of nursing sat down with inspectors on November 15th and confirmed what the checklists already showed. The facility had failed to ensure the crash carts were in safe operating condition. Both carts. Both floors. The failure caused actual harm, the inspection found, specifically a delay in emergency care for Resident R1.
CMS rated the violation at the "actual harm" level, meaning inspectors determined it had already hurt someone, not that it might someday hurt someone under the wrong circumstances.
Harmar Village cited Pennsylvania code 201.14(a), which covers the responsibility of the licensee, as the applicable regulation.
What the checklists don't explain is who was supposed to be checking the carts, why no one flagged the missing supplies, or how a binder documenting emergency readiness went from August to November without September or October ever being filed. The inspection report doesn't answer those questions. Neither did the facility's leadership when given the chance.
A nurse swept pills out of a resident's throat with her fingers while the equipment that might have helped sat somewhere other than the cart it was supposed to be on. The administrator confirmed it. The director of nursing confirmed it. The checklists had been saying so, in their own way, for weeks.
Full Inspection Report
The details above represent a summary of key findings. View the complete inspection report for Harmar Village Health & Rehab Center from 2025-11-15 including all violations, facility responses, and corrective action plans.
Additional Resources
Data source: Official federal inspection data from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS).
Editorial process: AI-synthesized regulatory data, reviewed for accuracy by our editorial team.
Professional review: All content reviewed by Christopher F. Nesbitt, Sr., NH EMT & BU-trained Paralegal.
Last verified: June 21, 2026 · Our methodology
HARMAR VILLAGE HEALTH & REHAB CENTER in CHESWICK, PA was cited for violations during a health inspection on November 15, 2025.
That was the emergency response available at Harmar Village Health & Rehab Center.
Health inspections identify deficiencies that facilities must correct. Violations range from minor documentation issues to serious safety concerns. Review the full report below for specific details and facility response.