FORT MYERS, Fla. (Court TV) — A nurse accused of disregarding alarms while monitoring a medically vulnerable child who needed oxygen maintained that she followed procedures and did nothing wrong, but failed to convince the judge, who sent her to prison.
Sharlene Pflugrad appears in court on Sept. 22, 2026. (Court TV)
Sharlene Pflugrad, 65, pleaded no contest to child neglect following an incident at a family’s home in Cape Coral in 2025. Pflugrad, a licensed practical nurse, had been working in the home, helping care for a medically complex 3-year-old boy. The child, who was born prematurely at 24 weeks, was suffering from a respiratory illness at the time. An agency hired Pflugrad to care for the child overnight from 10 p.m. to 8:15 a.m.
On the night in question, video shows Pflugrad in the child’s room silencing his oxygen alarm about 100 times. The alarm was designed to alert when his oxygen dropped to dangerous levels, with the normal range between 88 and 100. That night, investigators said, the child’s oxygen levels repeatedly dropped, but Pflugrad failed to take appropriate action…