Kentucky Nursing Home Resident Severely Injured, State Investigation Closed
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.

