How a tragedy sparked the move to build
what is now Boca Raton Regional Hospital
Boca Raton Regional Hospital today.
Gloria Drummond at the 1965 groundbreaking for the hospital.
By Sallie James
The horrific poisoning deaths of two children and the absence of a local medical center became the impetus for the “Miracle on Meadows Road.”
Boca Raton Regional Hospital sprang from the dreams of a grieving mother and the close-knit community that rallied to her side. As the sprawling 400-bed hospital celebrates its 50th birthday this year, the volunteers, physicians and staff recall the facility’s humble beginnings and how it grew into a community bedrock.
“The hospital rose out of tragedy. The town was small and the thing that was particularly impressive to me was how supportive all the people were of the effort to build a hospital,” recalled Dr. A.J. Peterson, 86, one of the first doctors on staff when the facility opened in 1967.
Dr. A.J. Peterson was one of the first physicians at Boca Raton Community Hospital.
With him is his daughter-in-law, Leigh Peterson, now a charge nurse at the hospital.
The painting behind the Petersons is of the Drummond children, Debra Ann, Robert, James Randall and Robyn.
Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star
The theme of the hospital’s 50th anniversary is “Keeping the Promise,” referring to the commitment Gloria Drummond made in the early 1960s when there was no hospital nearby and she lost two of her children. It’s a theme that has carried through the years, said hospital CEO Jerry Fedele, who came to Boca Raton Regional Hospital in 2008 and plans to retire next year.
“We are really the sweet spot of medicine. We are big enough to provide the best care but small enough to still have that community atmosphere,” Fedele said.
U.S. News & World Report named the hospital the top-ranked medical facility in Palm Beach County for 2016-2017, and Becker’s Hospital Review called it one of “150 top places to work in health care” in 2017.
But part of the hospital’s value to the community lies in its close ties to Boca Raton’s beginnings.
The hospital’s inspiration is rooted in the events of April 21, 1962, when Debra Ann Drummond, 9, and her brother James Randall Drummond, 3, died after drinking poison disguised as milk placed in their refrigerator by a neighbor boy, 11. The closest medical center was Bethesda Hospital in Boynton Beach.
Their parents, Gloria and James Drummond, wondered if a local hospital would have made a difference. The push for a local hospital was on.
Determined to make sense of the horrendous loss, Boca Raton residents established the Debbie-Rand Foundation Inc. and the Debbie-Rand Memorial Service League Inc. with the purpose of raising money for a future hospital.
The town had about 10,000 residents and a group of volunteers with a mission.
Today, the hospital has grown into a regional treatment complex with 2,800 employees, 1,200 volunteers and approximately 800 doctors on staff. The Debbie-Rand Memorial Service League has provided more than $31 million to the hospital since its formation in 1962 — the result of community support, philanthropy and love, organizers say.
Remembering the early years
According to Peterson, the Drummond family had spent a lazy Easter Sunday fishing on their boat. When they returned home, the children went to the refrigerator, drank the tainted milk and became mortally ill.
They never made it to the doctors.
“A neighborhood boy had put some arsenic in the milk and … they passed before they could get [care at] Bethesda Hospital. The thought from their parents was perhaps if there had been a hospital closer, they could have saved their lives,” Peterson said. “That was the drive to get the hospital.”
At the time, Meadows Road, where the hospital is located, was vacant land. Nearby was the Old Floresta housing development, originally constructed for the employees of the Mizner Development Corp. To the north was the old Air Force base, closed at the time and now the home of Florida Atlantic University.
It was a perfect setting with plenty of space to grow a complex that would someday save lives.
Groundbreaking for the hospital’s first phase was in November 1965. The hospital opened on July 17, 1967, with 104 beds.
Before then, Peterson and other doctors did much traveling to treat patients.
“In those days, we were on the staff at Bethesda Hospital … so that is where the patients went. You made rounds about 10-12 miles away and you would be on call for the emergency room about every three or four weeks,” Peterson recalled.
Peterson’s past is closely linked with the present: His daughter-in-law, Leigh Peterson, is a charge nurse who supervises the hospital’s neonatal intensive care unit and labor, delivery, recovery and postpartum center, named the Toppel Family Place. She has worked at the hospital 11 years.
“It is a great place to work. That is kind of their motto. I have seen administrations really make strides in the last several years to make sure we increased the quality of care we are giving to patients that are there to ensure we are taking care of people really well,” Leigh Peterson said.
Boca Raton resident and volunteer Joan Wargo, 87, began raising money for the hospital 50 years ago and never stopped. She will receive a pin to mark an astounding 35,000 hours of volunteer service later this month.
Wargo began volunteering years ago because she knew organizers could use her help.
“It was perfectly evident they needed a women’s group to raise money,” she chuckled.
Wargo is a charter member of the Debbie-Rand Memorial Service League, founded in 1962 as the hospital’s fundraising arm. Her decades of devotion are a tribute to the hospital’s deep community ties.
The former nurse recalled how the Drummond family requested donations be collected for a new hospital in lieu of flowers after their children died. The hospital’s supporters and volunteers took that request to heart. The seed money they collected eventually morphed into millions.
Wargo’s corps of volunteers organized bake sales, fashion shows, opened a thrift shop, planned fiestas with Spanish music and piñatas, organized boat parades and planned formal balls to stir interest in the fledgling hospital.
And when the hospital opened, Wargo trained volunteers to deliver food trays, run the information desk, operate the gift shop and snack bar, and handle just about anything else that came up and needed to be done.
Volunteers were “wherever we were needed, but you had to be trained,” Wargo said.
The key to the hospital’s success has always been its patient care, she added.
“The patient always comes first and you always have the best nursing care,” Wargo said proudly. “But the equipment the hospital has been able to afford through our great donors is unreal, especially in the cancer center. It’s all technology.
“I’m glad it turned out like it did. It was a lot of work but you get more out of it than you give,” Wargo said.
A.J. Peterson agreed.
“The care at the hospital was remarkably good. It was just as good as Bethesda. [We] had an intensive care unit and general surgery. There was no [obstetrics/gynecology] service at the time, but the internal medicine and general surgery were on par with other hospitals in the area,” Peterson recalled.
Paramedic service came next
However, the local ambulance service provided little more than a ride.
“Paramedics didn’t exist in those days. You could call an ambulance but there was no rapid medical care. A lot of [patients] died before the ambulance got there. It was certainly not the ambulance service we have today,” Peterson recalled.
A group of doctors, including Peterson, went to the City Council back in the early ’70s to discuss the need for rapid care service in the growing town. The Fire-Rescue Department was formed in 1974.
Today, the city has 250 firefighter/paramedics who work around-the-clock out of eight stations equipped with a combination of six rescue trucks and eight fire trucks.
Firefighter/paramedics are trained to perform everything from bandaging cuts to advanced emergency care and dispensing medications for patients in cardiac arrest, said Boca Fire-Rescue spokesman Bob Lemons.
New direction in recent years
In 2010, the hospital administration initiated a push to broaden hospital services and heighten the medical facility’s profile.
“We were a very good community hospital but our reach was very geographic,” explained CEO Fedele. “We changed the name from Boca Raton Community Hospital to Boca Raton Regional Hospital, but it was really more of a change in strategic direction. We added academics and residency teaching programs to teach young physicians both medicine and surgery with our partner at FAU, and we invested heavily in clinical program development.”
The hospital has had a building boom in the past 11 years: The Lynn Women’s Health
& Wellness Institute (above) and The Marcus Neuroscience Institute (below).
Photos provided Today, the hospital is home to the Eugene M. & Christine E. Lynn Cancer Institute, the Lynn Women’s Health and Wellness Institute, the Marcus Neuroscience Institute, the Wold Family Center for Emergency Medicine, the Barbara C. Gutin Center for Robotic Surgery and the Gloria Drummond Physical Rehabilitation Institute.
The hospital added the first hybrid operating room in South Florida, combining the most sophisticated technology in imaging and in operating rooms, and the first flash CT imaging machine that takes a full body scan in just seconds.
The impressive $150 million of investment came primarily from community donations, Fedele noted.
“We have grown tremendously because of that. We now draw patients from a much broader area,” Fedele said.
Despite the booming growth, the character of the hospital has remained intact.
“As much as we focused on investment and getting bigger, the purpose was never to step away from the community. Because we are so community-oriented, the philanthropy comes primarily from the Boca Raton community,” Fedele explained.
“I’ve been in health care more than 30 years and I have never seen a feeling of community ownership anywhere in the country like we have here.”
People such as Pat Thomas, 77, a volunteer who joined the Debbie-Rand Memorial Service League in 1983 and is still active today, help the community connection live on.
Thomas has served as president of the volunteers several times, is a trustee on the hospital board and a volunteer on the hospital foundation board. She chairs the Community Outreach Committee, which does the grant funding for different charitable organizations in the community.
She was a close friend of Gloria Drummond, who died in 2011, at 81. James Drummond, 58, died in 1989 at the hospital he helped found.
Thomas took Gloria Drummond’s cause to heart. She remembers Drummond’s pervasive sadness about the loss of her children and her determination to make a difference.
“Along the way, she realized how much good has come from it. People from everywhere would send her letters thanking her for pursuing that hospital. Maybe one of their relatives had been saved,” Thomas recalled. “Now we are 50 years old and we have grown beyond any expectation. I only wish she was here to celebrate with us.”
If You Go
What: The Boca Raton Historical Society & Museum has a display called “Miracle on Meadows Road: Boca Raton Regional Hospital at 50”
When: 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Monday through Friday, through Sept. 30
Where: 71 N. Federal Highway, Boca Raton
Admission: Adults $5, students $3, museum members free, guided tour $8
Information: 395-6766
Supporters gather for a photograph during construction of the new hospital.
Photo courtesy of Boca Raton Regional Hospital
Hospital’s historical highlights
Spring 1962: Drummond children poisoned; Boca Raton residents decide the area needs a hospital nearby.
Sept. 21, 1962: Debbie-Rand Memorial Service League is incorporated.
Sept. 25, 1962: Debbie-Rand Foundation is incorporated.
April 6, 1963: First fundraiser, Polo Ball (April Showers)
June 1964: Frank J. Dawson hired as administrator.
Summer 1965: Administration building built.
Nov. 28, 1965: Groundbreaking for hospital construction.
July 17, 1967: Hospital opens with 104 beds, admits first patient.
1971: Second construction phase completed; hospital expanded to 250 beds.
June 1977: Third construction phase completed; hospital expanded to 344 beds.
1982: Hospital expanded to 400 beds.
January 1985: 10-bed surgical intensive care unit opens.
May 1987: Expanded/renovated emergency room completed.
November 1990: Women’s Center opens.
Dec. 23, 1991: Groundbreaking for Lynn Regional Cancer Center.
July 17, 1992: Hospital celebrates 25th anniversary.
Sept. 4, 1993: New OB unit opens (One Family Place).
November 1996: Board of Trustees offers hospital for sale.
December 1996: Board of Trustees takes hospital off the market after lawsuit is filed.
July 17, 1997: Hospital celebrates 30th anniversary.
December 1997: Board announces hospital is not for sale and will remain not-for-profit, community hospital.
January 1999: Level II neonatal intensive care unit opens.
June 1999: New pediatric unit opens.
Sept. 15, 2006: Grand opening of Christine E. Lynn Heart Institute.
Nov. 17, 2008: Harvey and Phyllis Sandler Pavilion of Eugene M. and Christine E. Lynn Cancer Institute opens.
Aug. 20, 2010: Hospital changes name to Boca Raton Regional Hospital.
January 2013: Wold Family Center for Emergency Medicine opens.
January 2015: Marcus Neuroscience Institute opens.
July 2015: Christine E. Lynn Women’s Health & Wellness Institute opens.
July 17, 2017: Hospital’s 50th anniversary.
SOURCE: Boca Raton Regional Hospital
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