When deputies showed up at 29-year-old Autumn Bardisa’s Palm Coast home to arrest her for allegedly impersonating a nurse, they probably weren’t expecting her to become an online folk hero. Within hours of the news breaking, social media was flooded with thousands of comments, not condemning her, but defending her, pointing to the over 4,000 patients that Bardisa allegedly treated.
“To treat that many people, she must have been doing something right,” one Instagram user wrote, racking up over 1,400 likes.
Another went further: “If she did that good of a job to get promoted, she needs to be hired back and put through proper school.” That comment hit over 3,000 likes.
The Flagler County Sheriff’s Office says Bardisa spent nearly two years working at AdventHealth Palm Coast Parkway, claiming she had passed her nursing exam and even providing a license number that turned out to belong to another nurse with the same first name. According to investigators, Bardisa never actually held a nursing license, only an expired certified nursing assistant credential, but still performed medical services under supervision.
Her story unraveled in January, when a coworker curious about her promotion decided to check her license status. The hospital confronted Bardisa about the mismatch and her missing marriage certificate, and she was fired on January 22. That sparked a seven-month criminal investigation involving state and federal agencies, ending with her arrest earlier this week on 14 counts.
But if you scroll through online comment sections, you’d think she’d just been nominated for Nurse of the Year. “Instead of jail, let her get her nursing degree,” one person wrote, getting over 1,500 likes. “After all these cares, she’s as real as any nurse can be,” another user commented.
But officials aren’t buying it. Sheriff Rick Staly called it “one of the most disturbing cases of medical fraud we’ve ever investigated,” saying Bardisa “potentially put thousands of lives at risk” by pretending to be someone she wasn’t.
Still, the internet seems to have decided that Bardisa is more of an underdog than a villain. Bardisa is currently being held at the Sheriff Perry Hall Inmate Detention Facility on a $70,000 bond. As a reminder, all individuals are presumed innocent until proven guilty in court.
