PALM COAST, Fla. (WJW) – A woman accused of impersonating a licensed nurse and treating thousands of patients at a Florida hospital was arrested by sheriff’s deputies this week.
According to the Flagler County Sheriff’s Office, 29-year-old Autumn Bardisa, of Palm Coast, was taken into custody on Tuesday.
Investigators said she had active arrest warrants for seven counts of practicing a health care profession without a license and seven counts of fraudulent use of personal identification information.
The arrest came after a seven-month investigation that began in January.
At the time, hospital officials told investigators that they fired Bardisa “for impersonating a registered nurse by utilizing another individual’s license number and submitting false documentation to be employed as an advanced nurse technician at AdventHealth Palm Coast Parkway in Palm Coast,” the sheriff’s office wrote in a press release.
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According to hospital officials, Bardisa was hired as an advanced nurse tech in July 2023, working under a registered nurse.
Investigators said Bardisa told them she was an “education first” registered nurse, which means she supposedly finished the required schooling to become a registered nurse but still needed to pass the national exam to get her license.
Bardisa allegedly told the hospital system that she passed the exam during the hiring process and showed a license number matching her first name with a different last name, investigators said.
“Bardisa attempted to explain the discrepancy, stating that she had recently gotten married and had a new last name,” the sheriff’s office said. “Bardisa was then asked to provide her marriage license to AdventHealth, which she never did.”
Hospital officials said Bardisa was promoted in January 2025, but they started an internal investigation after discovering that she had an expired license belonging to a certified nursing assistant.
Bardisa, who investigators said still hadn’t provided her marriage license, was fired on Jan. 22.
AdventHealth reached out to the Flagler County Sheriff’s Office, leading to a criminal investigation.
During the seven-month investigation, detectives learned that Bardisa was using the stolen identity of a nurse who worked at another AdventHealth hospital. Detectives said the two didn’t know each other personally, but they reportedly went to school together.
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According to detectives, Bardisa treated more than 4,400 patients between June 2024 and January 2025 without having a valid nursing license.
She is currently being held at the Sheriff Perry Hall Inmate Detention Facility on a $70,000 bond, the sheriff’s office said.
“This is one of the most disturbing cases of medical fraud we’ve ever investigated,” Sheriff Rick Staly said in the release. “This woman potentially put thousands of lives at risk by pretending to be someone she was not and violating the trust of patients, their families, AdventHealth and an entire medical community.
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