Nursing Home Abuse Lawyer Blog

A Connecticut nursing home resident was killed on Saturday, August 21, 2010, after he tumbled from his wheelchair.

Eighty-eight year old Percy Sumner, a resident of Bishops Corner Skilled Nursing & Rehabilitation, a nursing home facility located in West Hartford, Connecticut, had been a resident of the facility since 2004. Suffering from dementia, Sumner was seen earlier in the morning near the front door of the facility and was redirected. According to Jeanne Moore, a spokeswoman for Genesis HealthCare, the nursing home's owner, "This patient was put on a 15-minute check right away and those observations are documented by our nursing staff. He was last observed in the hallway of his unit at 9:15 a.m. Unfortunately, just minutes later, the patient went out the front door, unwitnessed and unaccompanied by Bishops Corner staff."

When Sumner eloped from facility through the front door, the front door alarm reportedly sounded, as did a personal alarm Sumner wore for safety. It is unknown how much time elapsed between the time the alarms sounded and the time staff responded to those alarms. Sumner rolled 44 feet down a grassy embankment, through a vinyl picket fence, and over a three foot rock wall before falling from his wheelchair and hitting his head on the sidewalk. He was taken to St. Francis Hospital and Medical Center, where he died.

This is not the first time the facility has been in the eye of inspection officials. Approximately four months ago, nursing home inspectors found that the facility failed ensure that the facility was free of dangers that cause accidents and failed to have a program in place to prevent inspection from spreading. According to the new rating system instituted by Medicare.gov, the facility was rated two out of five stars, or "much below average".

While the Terry Law Firm is not involved in this case, we have handled several cases involving elopement and wrongful death. Elopement as a result of lack of supervision by the nursing staff can often be linked directly to budgeting issues and insufficient staffing.

In Rockford, Illinois, nursing home competition is fierce. Rockford is considered "overbedded" due to an overabundance of nursing care and rehabilitation beds. The average occupancy rate in an Illinois nursing home is 80 - 82%, which means 14,000 vacancies per 100,000 beds. Nursing home officials are learning how to deal with the situation and adapt in a market full of senior care options.

Nursing homes are adapting the changing senior lifestyle choices by offering more care options. New business is being be attracted by transforming available nursing home wings into adult day care centers or adding short-term rehabilitation beds. In fact, two of the most popular business trends in Illinois today are short-term rehabilitation and late-stage Alzheimer's round-the-clock care.

Years ago, a senior fractured hip called for hospitalization for at least three months to heal and rehabilitate. Today, the same injury requires a two to three day hospitalization and then a stay at a short-term care facility for rehabilitation. According to Terry Sullivan, the regulatory director at the Health Care Council of Illinois, "Short-term rehab is 'a big part of nursing home business these days'" because a hospitalization is much more costly. Sullivan also said, "More facilities are specializing in one or the other. Many are licensed to do both, and a number of facilities went for a variance only to serve Alzheimer's residents...But there are higher standards that have to be met."

According to Nancy Nelson, AARP Illinois senior manager for advocacy, "advocates are trying to balance the protections for seniors in long-term care facilities with the rules and regulations those facilities face when trying to change their business models."

Marlene Delp

Muliple defenseless nursing home residents were left to suffer in pain after a nurse caring for them reportedly stole their pain medications.

Marlene Delp was arrested and charged in August 2010 on suspicion of stealing medications from almost twenty residents of The Terraces of Roseville, a California nursing home facility. The owner of The Terraces at Roseville suspected that Delp was stealing resident medications and alerted local police, who began an investigation.

Police searched the apartment in which Delp resided at The Terraces and found a variety of medication prescribed to 28 different people, 19 of whom were facility residents. Reportedly, she was replacing the residents' painkillers with over-the-counter medications.

She has been released from jail and a restraining order forbids her from working at the facility.

Alesha Neault faces two felony counts of unlawfully possessing a controlled drug and two misdemeanor counts of abusing a facility resident after she reportedly removed Fentanyl patches from two nursing home residents. Neault allegedly kept the patches for her own use.

What is Fentanyl?

Fentanyl is a powerful painkiller that is 100 times more potent than morphine. Typically used to help control severe, persistent pain, such as postoperative pain or pain due to cancer, the Fentanyl pain patch delivers a controlled dose of the drug through the skin into the bloodstream over a period of three days.

Sadly, drug addicts are misusing the pain patch. Nursing homes often use the Fentanyl pain patch to help keep their chronically pain-ridden residents comfortable. As you read above, some nursing home employees are stealing Fentanyl patches from their defenseless residents and leaving them to suffer excruciating pain so they can use the patches themselves. Reportedly, drug abusers are able to withdraw the full dosage of the drug and take the entire dose at one time, either through injection, ingestion, or smoking.

Felicia Williams was arrested on August 25, 2010 on three third-degree felony counts of injury to the elderly or disabled by exploitation. As shocking as this is, this was not the first time she was suspected of abusing defenseless elderly residents.

Williams, a former CNA at Port Lavaca Nursing and Rehabilitation Center, had been investigated not two weeks earlier on suspicion of making "improper video recordings" of residents of the facility. According to the facility attorney, Paul Romano, "Port Lavaca Nursing and Rehabilitation Center deeply regrets that the rights of some of its residents were violated by a former employee's inappropriate use of a cell phone video recorder". Facility management discovered the video through an internal investigation and contacted local police.

Williams remains in jail on in lieu of a $130,000 bond.

A California man will spend three years behind bars for admittedly raping a defenseless 76 year-old resident on multiple occasions.

Fifty-four year old Felix Panem plead guilty to rape of an incoherent patient and elder abuse in June 2010. He was arrested in December 2009 after he was caught having sex with his victim by another employee of the El Dorado Care Center.

According to Officer David Vojtaskovic, "He told me that he came in (to her room) and cleaned her up. He changed her and had sexual intercourse with her." Panem admitted to having sex with the resident in May and November 2009. His victim described Panem as a friend but didn't recall seeing him that day and denied having sex with him.

Sexual abuse is a growing problem at nursing homes. Every day more elderly residents are subjected to sexual attacks by employees and other residents. For a nursing home abuse attorney who has had experience in handling cases of sexual assault, contact the Terry Law Firm at (888) 317-2525.

The LaSalle County Nursing Home continues to be plagued with problems, the most recent of which is a CNA has been reportedly accused of abuse. We've discussed this nursing home in previous blogs. In the past two years, the facility has been forced to deal with a multitude of problems, including the molestation of multiple defenseless residents by another resident.

Now, an investigation of a CNA is underway for abuse/molestation. According to Illinois Department of Public Health (IDPH) spokeswoman Melaney Arnold, "IDPH did receive an incident report from the facility regarding a CNA (certified nurse assistant) and abuse. IDPH is reviewing the evidence to determine what action, if any, will be taken."

Many Illinois nursing homes have been plagued by the physical abuse and sexual abuse of nursing home residents. Nursing home abuse and neglect attorney David Terry has successfully handled many cases against the nursing home industry. If you are ain Illinois resident and would like a copy of David's new book, Five Things You Must Know About Nursing Home Abuse and Neglect in Illinois at no cost to you, call our office toll-free at (888) 317-2525 or order online here. The book is free if you live in Illinois or the nursing home you are concerned about is located in Illinois.

Elmer Huntsman was admitted to Elmwood Nursing and Rehabilitation Center on August 26, 2008. Huntsman was required to sleep with a continuous positive airway pressure system device (CPAP), which forced air into his lungs and helped him to breathe at night.

Early in the morning on October 5, 2008, Huntsman began suffering distress, severe oxygen desaturation, and shortness of breath. He called for help from facility staff members, but they refused. Instead, the day staff called for a non-emergent hospital transfer the next morning. By the time Huntsman got to the hospital around 9:15 a.m., he had fixed and dilated pupils and his body showed signs of lividity. Huntsman also had a urinary tract infection, weight loss, and Stage 2, 3, and 4 pressure sores on his buttocks and coccyx.

Huntsman's family filed an 18-count lawsuit in Madison County, Illinois against the facility, its owners, and Fox Med-Equip, the maker of the CPAP machine. The lawsuit alleges that Elmwood failed to properly assess Huntsman's condition, failed to adequately supervise him, and failed to recognize and treat his condition. Fox Med-Equip is accused of failing to have adequate procedures in place to ensure its equipment performed satisfactorily, failed to provide appropriate monitoring of its equipment to ensure it was used in accordance with doctor's orders, and failed to provide adequate documentation for the set up of the machinery and proper staff training.

The lawsuit seeks compensatory damages for pain, suffering, disability, disfigurement, mental anguish, inconvenience, physical impairment, loss of capacity to enjoy life, loss of chance of survival and loss of remainder of life. Michael Huntsman, his son, also seeks a judgment of more than $800,000 plus punitive damages and attorney's fees.

A Mississippi man was arrested on August 20, 2010 and charged with two counts of fondling a vulnerable person.

Twenty-three year old Brandon Rowlings was arrested after he allegedly fondled a 70 year old man who lived in a personal care facility where he worked. Rowlings was investigated after the victim's family members reported concerns to authorities.

Rowlings faces up to 15 years in jail and/or a $5,000 fine per count if convicted.

Daily we are hearing about defenseless nursing home residents being sexually abused or sexually assaulted by nursing home employees or other residents. Contact the Terry Law Firm at (888) 317-2525 if you have concerns that a loved one is being sexually abused or sexually assaulted while living in a nursing home facility.

In January 2009, Irene Hendrix suffered severe injuries at Cambridge Place Nursing Home in Lexington, Kentucky. No one seems to know what happened and Ms. Hendrix, who suffers from Alzheimer's, can't tell anyone.

Ms. Hendrix was found lying in a pool of blood with broken facial bones, bleeding in her brain, a swollen eye, a cut lip, and a 4 cm laceration on her forehead. She was hospitalized for three weeks and nearly died. Pretty severe injuries for "just a fall".

The case was reportedly investigated but closed without the nursing home being cited for Type A abuse, which is when a resident is placed in imminent danger or faces substantial abuse or neglect. Hendrix's family wonders why.

While they are suing the nursing home for Hendrix's injuries, they have also asked the Kentucky Attorney General's Office to reopen the investigation into her injuries. According to Hendrix's attorney, Scott Owens, this is a case of an abuse or neglect investigation at a Kentucky nursing home that "simply didn't go deep enough. There was enough evidence to raise a flag that there was a possibility that she could have been attacked...And we know that wasn't investigated at all."

All Kentucky nursing home abuse cases are investigated by the Attorney General's Office, the Cabinet for Health and Family Services' Office of Inspector General, and the Adult Protective Services branch of the Cabinet for Health and Family Services. It appears that the right hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing in this instance.

According to the Attorney General's investigator, the cabinet's adult protection worker believed the injuries were accidental. The adult protection worker determined that Hendrix was the victim of caretaker neglect and had been exposed to an extreme safety risk.

Investigators from the state agencies were told by nursing home staff that Hendrix was missing on January 21, 2009, while in her merry walker. Unfortunately, each investigator reported varying information, including where Hendrix was found. The Attorney General's investigator called the room where Hendrix was found a "physical therapy room 'set up similar to a residential room'". The Office of the Inspector General's investigators called the room "an empty resident's room" and the adult protection worker called the room "an area with storage equipment". Information about how Hendrix fell also were conflicting: one report said she fell over a wheelchair and one stated that she was found in the merry walker with her face "to the floor". The Attorney General's investigator was told by nursing home staff members that they thought her walker had caught the door frame or raised threshold and it caused her to fall and land on her face with the merry walker on top of her.

According to Owens, his investigation has found that there have been resident-on-resident assaults at the facility and he and the family want investigators to re-examine the incident to determine if someone could have attacked Hendrix.

Barbara Lefforge

Barbara Lefforge was at St. Edna Subacute & Rehabilitation Center in Santa Ana, California a mere 5 1/2 hours when she was accidentally overdosed on morphine.

Lefforge went to St. Edna on September 17, 2007 after a tendon repair surgery. Her podiatrist prescribed 50 mg of morphine for pain instead of 50 mg of Demerol. According to her attorney, the medication error should have been noted by facility staff. Reportedly, the pharmacist warned that the prescribed dosage was too high. Nurses at the facility were unable to administer the full dose, so 30 mg was obtained from an office emergency kit and administered. Lefforge suffered an overdose, but no one monitored her or took her to the hospital. By the time Lefforge reached a hospital, she was barely breathing and had already suffered a brain injury.

A jury deliberated for two days before returning a unanimous verdict that St. Edna was 90% responsible for the damages fifty-seven year old Lefforge suffered and her physician, Wesley Kobayashi, was responsible for 10%. She was awarded $2 million for pain and suffering and $1.1 for medical costs. Punitive damages were also awarded and a hearing on those damages is set for August 24, 2010.

St. Edna Subacute & Rehabilitation Center is one of 25 California Covenant Care facilities.

Brianna Broitzman entered an Alford Plea on Monday, August 16, 2010, on three gross misdemeanor counts of disorderly conduct by a caregiver toward a vulnerable adult in the criminal case of abusing defenseless residents of Albert Lea Good Samaritan nursing home in Albert Lea, Minnesota. An Alford Plea means that the defendant in a case maintains innocence but acknowledges that existing evidence could result in a "guilty" jury verdict.

Broitzman's sentencing is set for October 22, 2010. The gross misdemeanors each carry a maximum penalty of one year in prison, a $3,000 fine, or both. The case against Broitzman's accomplice in the abuse case, Ashton Larson, remains pending and the Freeborn County Attorney does not envision a similar plea in that case.

We had discussed the abuse these residents suffered in a previous blog.