Hospital patients put their lives in the hands of medical professionals every day.
They trust that the people caring for them actually know what they’re doing.
And a Florida woman’s marriage lie crumbled when one coworker discovered her jaw-dropping secret.
Bardisa’s 18-month con job at AdventHealth
Autumn Bardisa managed to keep her secret for a year and a half at AdventHealth Palm Coast Parkway.
The 29-year-old walked the halls in scrubs, treated patients, and collected paychecks – all while pretending to be a licensed registered nurse.
But Bardisa wasn’t licensed to do anything more than empty bedpans.
Her elaborate con game finally fell apart when she got a little too greedy and applied for a promotion in January.
That’s when a coworker decided to double-check her credentials and discovered something that made their blood run cold.
Bardisa had been treating patients with nothing more than an expired certified nursing assistant license.¹
Over 4,400 patients had received care from someone who had no business touching a stethoscope, let alone making medical decisions.
Sheriff Rick Staly called it “one of the most disturbing cases of medical fraud we’ve ever investigated.”²
How she talked her way into the job
Bardisa’s scheme started with a pretty basic lie.
July 2023 rolls around and she’s applying for an advanced nurse technician job – basically someone who works under a real nurse’s supervision.
When she filled out her application, Bardisa claimed she was an “education first” registered nurse.³
That’s hospital speak for someone who finished nursing school but hadn’t passed the national licensing exam yet.
But then Bardisa got bold and told the hospital she’d actually passed her exam and had a valid license.
She even provided a license number to prove it.
The license belonged to another nurse named Autumn who worked at a different AdventHealth hospital.
When hospital administrators asked about the name discrepancy, Bardisa spun a story about getting married and changing her last name.
The hospital did exactly what they should have done – they asked to see her marriage license as proof.
But Bardisa never provided it because the marriage never happened.
18 months of putting patients at risk
Instead of following up on the missing marriage license, the hospital let Bardisa start working.
For 18 months, she treated patients while hospital administrators apparently forgot all about the documentation they never received.
According to investigators, Bardisa “participated in medical services” for 4,486 patients from June 2024 through January 2025.⁴
Think about that number for a second – nearly 4,500 people trusted this woman with their health and wellbeing.
Some of them were probably seriously ill. Others might have been getting routine care.
But all of them deserved to have qualified, licensed medical professionals taking care of them.
Instead, they got someone whose only legitimate credential was an expired nursing assistant license.
The real nurse whose identity Bardisa stole told investigators they’d attended the same college but didn’t personally know each other.⁵
That nurse only found out about the fraud when AdventHealth contacted her in January after Bardisa got caught.
Getting promoted was her biggest mistake
After more than a year of flying under the radar, Bardisa got cocky.
January comes around and she decides to go for a charge nurse promotion.
Bad move.
The promotion “sparked interest” among her coworkers, and one of them decided to verify her nursing license status.⁶
They discovered Bardisa only had an expired CNA license instead of the registered nurse credentials she’d been claiming.
That coworker went straight to hospital administrators with the news.
That’s when they realized Bardisa had never provided the marriage license they’d requested 18 months earlier.
AdventHealth fired Bardisa on January 22 and contacted the Flagler County Sheriff’s Office to launch a criminal investigation.⁷
Arrest comes seven months later
The investigation took seven months and involved the Florida Health Department and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
On August 5, deputies showed up at Bardisa’s home with an arrest warrant.
Video of her arrest shows officers confronting her as she sat in her car wearing blue scrubs – still dressed like the nurse she never was.
Bardisa now faces seven counts of practicing a health care profession without a license and seven counts of fraudulent use of personal identification.⁸
https://twitter.com/RedWave_Press/status/1953800793133351036
She’s being held on $70,000 bond at the Sheriff Perry Hall Inmate Detention Facility.
Her arraignment is scheduled for September 2.
AdventHealth dropped the ball big time
Look, Bardisa deserves everything coming to her, but AdventHealth screwed up too.
How does a hospital “forget” to follow up on missing marriage documentation for 18 months?
The charging documents specifically mention AdventHealth’s failure to identify that Bardisa never uploaded the required marriage license and cite “oversight on the discrepancies” in her employee information.⁹
This wasn’t some sophisticated identity theft scheme – it was a pretty basic lie that should have been caught within weeks, not months.
Sheriff Staly has set up a dedicated email address – [email protected] – for people who think they may have been treated by Bardisa.
The fact that over 4,400 patients need to be contacted shows just how massive this breach of trust really was.
Healthcare fraud cases like this aren’t isolated incidents either.
Another case happened in November 2024 when a woman impersonated a registered nurse at a hospital in Burbank, California.
When you’re sick and need medical care, you shouldn’t have to guess whether your nurse actually went to nursing school.
Bardisa spent 18 months treating patients she had no business touching, and that’s going to stick with those families for a long time.
She’s sitting in jail now with plenty of time to think about what she did.
¹ Megan Forrester, “Nurse imposter arrested after treating over 4,000 patients without a license: Sheriff,” ABC News, August 6, 2025.
² Ibid.
³ Ibid.
⁴ Marlene Lenthang, “Florida woman charged with posing as nurse and treating more than 4,000 patients with stolen license,” NBC News, August 7, 2025.
⁵ Ibid.
⁶ Ibid.
⁷ Forrester, “Nurse imposter arrested after treating over 4,000 patients without a license: Sheriff.”
⁸ Ibid.
⁹ Lenthang, “Florida woman charged with posing as nurse and treating more than 4,000 patients with stolen license.”
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Author: rgcory
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