California has fined 18 hospitals for state health code violations, including some that resulted in patient deaths. Mishaps included an improperly inserted tube and a ventilator that wasn't turned on.

Other violations include surgical tools left inside patients after surgery.

The fines result from investigations by the California Department of Public Health that found shoddy care had either killed or endangered several patients.

The hospitals were each fined $25,000.

The report detailed a death at a La Mesa hospital in which a worker failed to turn on a ventilator for a patient who was being transferred. Another patient in Los Alamitos died after falling from a wheelchair with no seat belt on, and a Santa Ana hospital lost a patient from a medication overdose.