Carlie Beaudin died a brutal death in a parking garage attached to a hospital where she worked saving lives.

As word of the violent beating spread this week, health care workers nationwide took to Facebook voicing shock and sadness; offering prayers and condolences.

And expressing anger.

Not only at the suspect, a former valet who was arrested within hours, but at medical facilities they say refuse to provide them adequate protection.

Nurses and other hospital workers said they have long worried about their safety arriving and leaving work at all hours of the night, often forced to park in faraway lots or poorly lit parking garages that usually lack security staff.

They shared stories of terrifying experiences in their workplace parking structures, talked of the daily fears and the frustration that the medical complexes haven’t taken better measures to ensure their safety.

Their concerns are backed up by federal crime data. FBI reports show parking structures and lots are the third most common site of murders and assaults in the U.S.

Medical staff are especially vulnerable, the workers said.

"We come and go at all hours, in dark deserted parking lots, and not everywhere has security or even adequate lighting," wrote one woman on a medical-related Facebook page. "Major changes need to happen or we should refuse to be put in these situations."

One woman who has worked for many years at Froedtert Hospital, where Beaudin was killed, said part of the problem stems from the fact that executives and administrators are not in the same situation. They have nearby parking and don’t typically come and go in the middle of the night.

“Somewhere along the way, we lost focus and the safety and wellness of the caregivers was no longer important,” the woman told the Journal Sentinel. The woman did not want her name published due to concerns about retaliation.

The woman said she has regularly felt frightened walking to her car over the years and wonders why the cameras in the garages do not appear to be monitored in real time.

A woman who left Froedtert in 2014 after several years working in admissions and who still has good friends employed there said the hospital offers escorts but doesn’t have a useful system in place.

“They make it seem like an inconvenience,” she said. “They make it seem like ‘We have more important things to do but when we’re not busy, we’ll make our way to you. It might be a half hour.’”

Gina Dennik-Champion, executive director for the Wisconsin Nurses Association, said the issue of parking garage safety for the state’s 105,000 nurses as well as medical personnel across the country should not be ignored.

“It’s an extension of the workplace,” Dennik-Champion said of parking on-site, noting that medical staff don’t always leave as a group during a shift change. Sometimes they stay late to provide extra care to patients, she said. “You’re not going to abandon them, and you shouldn’t have to be all that concerned about whether I’m going to get to my car safely.”

Froedtert Hospital and the Medical College of Wisconsin officials would not answer questions about security policy or protocol. They declined to tell the Journal Sentinel whether or how often the garages are patrolled, how camera surveillance is used, how many complaints they’ve received or how many incidents have happened over the years.

“We continue to work closely with law enforcement and remain vigilant about the emotional and physical safety of every person who works or studies at, is cared for by, or visits our campuses, clinics and hospitals,” spokesman Stephen Schooff wrote in an email.

Other hospital chains around the region such as Aurora and Ascension, which now owns the Columbia St. Mary’s hospitals, had little to say as well. A visitor was stabbed by a stranger in the parking garage at Columbia St. Mary’s on Lake Drive last April.

“Violence and injury are serious and systemic public health issues facing our community,” Travis Andersen, president of Ascension Wisconsin’s south region, said in an email. “Ascension Wisconsin is dedicated to being a part of the solution by implementing initiatives to address workplace safety, trauma-informed care and human trafficking.”

Deb Somers-Larney, vice president of Security for Advocate Aurora Heath, said Aurora has its properties patrolled by security personnel, monitors lighting and provides escorts to cars, among other safety precautions.

“We frequently evaluate and enhance our already robust safety programs and protocols,” she said in a written statement.

None of health care organizations would provide specific answers about security protocol.

Data support concerns about parking garages

National statistics support concerns about parking garage safety. Data from the FBI show parking garages are the third most common place for assaults and homicides after private homes and streets, alleys or sidewalks.

In 2017, of 5,542 homicides (roughly a third of the homicides nationwide reported to the FBI that year), 378 happened in a parking lot or garage, according to the agency's figures. That’s more than at bars, gas stations and hotels combined.

The data cover roughly 7,000 of the 16,655 law enforcement agencies in the U.S. that reported crime information to the FBI in 2017, including Milwaukee. Many of the nation’s larger cities did not submit figures for this specific data collection effort.

In all, about 4% of personal assaults occur in parking areas, the agency’s numbers show.

The data also show the most likely time for an assault or homicide is between midnight and 1 a.m. Carlie Beaudin was attacked at 1 a.m. as she walked off the elevator to her car.

Jim Johnson, a Minnesota-based parking industry consultant, said securing parking structures is not as easy as it might seem. The multiple points of entry and the fact that they might be open to the general public around the clock make them especially challenging.

“They are remarkably difficult to secure,” he said. “They have built-in problems."

Johnson said closed-circuit TV, which many companies rely on to show they are taking safety measures, isn’t as useful as many people think. He said cameras aren’t always monitored and even when they are, it can be difficult for guards to detect nefarious behavior.

Controlling access is the number one way to cut down on crime, he said.

Given the high number of women who work in hospital settings and the statistics showing women are more often victims of assaults, Johnson said extra precautions need to be taken on medical campuses.

“Call it sexist, I don’t care what you call it, it’s a matter of reality,” Johnson said. “You need to take measures to defend against it.”

Case law pertaining to responsibility for employee safety in parking garages has varied. In a Pennsylvania case where a woman was injured in a parking garage where she worked, the company was not held responsible because it didn’t actually own the structure or require her to park there.

In a similar case in Oklahoma, the company was held responsible for a woman’s injury in the garage because the company owned and maintained the structure and instructed her to park there.

OSHA, the federal agency that oversees workplace safety, requires employers under the "General Duty Clause” to provide workplaces that are “free from recognized hazards that are causing or likely to cause death or serious physical harm.”

The agency publishes guidelines that specifically address parking for health care workers. The agency suggests medical facilities provide secure escorts, ensure lighting is adequate and trim hedges to eliminate hiding spaces. It also provides a worksheet for medical complexes to assess their level of security, asking, “Is the parking lot attended or otherwise secured?”

And, “Is there a nearby parking lot reserved for employees only?”

Using technology to increase safety

The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee police department plans to implement a new system in March it hopes will offer an added layer of security for students, staff and faculty, who also tend to be moving about campus after dark.

Called Rave Guardian, the app will allow users to simply press a button on their phone that will connect them directly to campus police. As long as location services are turned on, police can see their GPS coordinates and dispatch directly, said Chief Joseph LeMire of the UWM police department. The app also has a virtual escort feature that allows a friend to see where a person is for a specified amount of time and get alerted if they don’t arrive on schedule.

“I can choose a guardian, and let’s say I’m about to walk from the library to my car, you accept and see my GPS,” LeMire said.

Juliana, a recently retired registered nurse of 30 years from Illinois who didn’t want her last name used because a family member is a nurse in Milwaukee, said panic buttons would be a good idea on hospital grounds.

She said safety threats were prevalent around the hospital where she worked in Chicago years ago, leading to an unusual arrangement. Gang members regularly offered to walk hospital staff to their cars to ensure their safety, she said.

“They would walk us out, unless there was a rival gang around,” she said. “They were great.”

But hospital workers should not have to depend on gangs for safety, she said.

Aside from incorporating and linking panic buttons to on-site security, hospitals should station guards on every level of the garages, she said.

“Talk about unemployment, put some folks to work. Put them in a truck and have them sit there.”

Many of the hospital workers interviewed by the Journal Sentinel said they feared retaliation from their employers. In fact, while Juliana agreed to have her name published, she backed out at her daughter's insistence. Her daughter is a nurse, and feared that she would face problems herself if her mother stirred things up.

The daughter, who worked at Froedtert until last year and was regularly worried about safety, also was afraid to speak out because word could travel to her new employer.

“It’s a small community,” she said. “There’s a lot of black-balling and bad-mouthing.”

Juliana said she hopes executives now realize immediate action is needed.

“The attitude is, ‘Oh you’re just worried about stuff.’ They say, ‘Oh that doesn’t happen here.’ It does happen here.”

Kevin Crowe of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel staff contributed to this report.