Nursing Home Abuse Lawyer Blog

The North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services and the Chapel Hill Police Department are investigating after several residents at The Britthaven of Chapel Hill tested positive for opiates.

The Britthaven of Chapel Hill, a nursing home facility located in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, has had problems with patient care in the past. The facility notified authorities after a resident's blood tests revealed unprescribed opiates. Other residents of the facility's 29 bed Alzheimer's unit displayed signs of lethargy and underwent testing. Opiates were found in the blood of at least two more residents, who were immediately admitted to the hospital.

No drugs were missing from the facility, but the investigation continues. The regular staff of the Alzheimer's unit has been temporarily replaced with staff from corporate offices and other facilities.

Britthaven has had problems in the past at this facility. Prior to this incident, the facility was placed on the "Special Focus Facility" list belonging to the Medicare due to persistent and uncorrected conditions involving poor care. As a result, the facility receives a bi-annual inspection, rather than an annual inspection.

We discussed The Britthaven nursing home, a facility where residents were reportedly found to be under the influence of drugs that they weren't supposed to be receiving, in a previous blog.

A criminal investigation has been launched by the State Bureau of Investigation and the Medicaid Investigations Unit of the Attorney General's Office to investigate the possibility of drugging at The Britthaven. Six Alzheimer's residents tested positive for strong pain relieving drugs that they were not prescribed and three residents had to be hospitalized. Sadly, one of the three residents hospitalized, eighty-four year old Rachel Holliday, died on February 16, 2010.

The nursing home facility has taken multiple steps to ensure resident safety. The facility replaced some medications and eliminated some dietary supplements. The Alzheimer's unit is now monitored 24 hours a day. The Alzheimer's unit's staff have all been drug tested and while the test results were all negative, the staff remains on paid leave.

We previously discussed Della Jarrett and Sunnybrook Healthcare and Rehabilitation in our blog.

Eighty-eight year old Della Jarrett was a long-time resident of Sunnybrook Healthcare and Rehabilitation in Raleigh, North Carolina. In May 2009, Ms. Jarrett was transported to the hospital for treatment of a gastric problem. When Ms. Jarrett's daughter, Doris Weaver, walked into the Emergency Room, she found dark bruises on her mother's face from her temple down to her lower earlobe. No one seemed to know what happened. Because Ms. Jarrett has suffered from dementia since her late 70s and has been unable for years to roll over or walk, Weaver finds it unlikely that her mother injured herself in a fall. She thinks her mother was abused and reported it to local police.

Federal regulators inspected the facility and found that residents were at risk for immediate harm for more than eight weeks this past spring. Immediate jeopardy is a situation in which the caregiver's actions, or lack thereof, are likely to cause serious harm, injury, impairment, or death to a resident. Violations were found in six other resident care areas, including the facility's failure to identify and report the source of Ms. Jarrett's bruising and to properly supervise residents to prevent injury. Other violations uncovered included:

- Failure to timely notify Ms. Jarrett's physician and family when unexplained bruises were discovered;
- Failure to properly supervise residents to prevent accidents (an unidentified female resident at the facility to learn to use a walker fell twice, once in her own urine);
- Violation of facility policy when the facility failed to identify and report injuries of unknown origin (Jarrett case);
- Failure to allow residents to make choices. Ms. Jarrett was transferred to a hospital when her records clearly stated that she wanted no unnecessary hospitalizations while under hospice care;
- Failure to document and assess Ms. Jarrett's bruising.

While inspectors were unable to substantiate Ms. Jarrett's abuse, they did not rule it out. Nevertheless, Doris Weaver is glad she called the state, saying, "It was good that I notified the state. Hopefully, it will help some other person from ending up like my mother." In the case of Della Jarrett, one nursing assistant was suspended and a nurse was disciplined. Della Jarrett has since been moved to another long-term care facility.

Sunnybrook Healthcare and Rehabilitation faces in excess of $210,000 in federal fines, as well as an additional $200 per day fine since June 9, 2009.

The Terry Law Firm is experienced in handling cases of nursing home abuse and neglect. Please contact us with any questions or concerns at (888) 317-2525 or visit us on our website at www.nursinghomejustice.com.

New resident admissions have been reinstated at Corinthian Place, an assisted living facility located in North Carolina. State regulators suspended new admissions at the facility on May 7 after an inspection revealed several serious violations affecting the health and safety of the residents.

The recent inspection revealed many problems. Eight of eleven exit door alarms were not engaged to alert staff, failure to test all residents for tuberculosis, failure to provide appropriate supervision for residents with aggressive/inappropriate behavior, falls, and wandering. Additionally, the facility admitted a resident who had been identified and documented as requiring a skilled level of nursing care and failed to administer medications as ordered by a resident's physician.

In one instance, a resident, who suffered from vascular dementia and a history of brain hemorrhages, was admitted to the facility's special care unit. The man had several displays of inappropriate and aggressive behavior toward residents and facility staff, which included hitting, pulling the fire alarm, and fondling a female resident's breast, as well as a history of falls. In fact, he died from a fall a few days after he was found unconscious on the floor, not breathing. His death certificate listed his cause of death as "closed head Injury and cause of death as a fall". The inspectors' report stated, "review of the resident's record revealed no documentation of hourly checks or any other increased supervision related to aggressive/inappropriate behaviors or falls". Additionally, the resident's physician ordered medications to treat dementia and anxiety, as well as Haldol to be taken every twelve hours. Haldol is used to treat mental and mood disorders as well. Inspector reports revealed that it appeared that the resident had not been given the medicine ordered for approximately four months.

The Terry Law Firm is experienced in handling cases of nursing home abuse and neglect. Please contact us with any questions or concerns at 1 (888) 317-2525 or visit our www.nursinghomejustice.com.

Daniel Julian East

Daniel Julian East, 55, is being held on a $2 million bond and charged with second-degree murder in the May 25, 2009 death of a fellow resident at David's House, an assisted living facility located in Dobson, North Carolina. The charge may be upgraded to first degree murder.

On May 21, 2009, Jeremiah Daniel Love, 27, was involved in a confrontation with East. East said he went after Love because Love had cursed and kicked his dog. Angry, East hit Love several times in the head, shoulder, and arm with his cane.

After the alleged assault, an employee called Karen Huddleston, a co-owner of the facility and asked her to apply for commitment papers on Love. She found a knot of Love's head and applied ice. In the meantime, she called police to assist in moving Love to a hospital for treatment. Allegedly, Love had repeatedly left the facility that day and was also physically harming himself by hitting his head and knuckles on a block wall. Once at the hospital, Love complained of a headache, became sick, and began having seizures. He was airlifted to Wake Forest Hospital, where he underwent surgery for severe bleeding on the brain. He died on May 25, 2009, without ever regaining consciousness. An autopsy on May 26 ruled Love's death a homicide and East was charged with second degree murder on May 29, 2009.

Love's family contacted police on May 22, 2009, because they did not believe the story David's House staff were providing. According to Dobson Police Chief Shawn Myers, "The family had been told that Love was in a confrontation with another resident and that he fled, fell over some bicycles and struck an air conditioning unit before hitting the back of his head on a concrete porch." The injury was to the right side of Love's skull.

Surveillance footage from the facility shows East swinging at Love and missing. Then, East is seen hitting Love in the side of the head with his cane in a baseball-type swing. Love fell and was hit again before staff could pull them apart. The bicycles in the area were seen upright when Love fell. The story East told, however, collaborated with surveillance footage.

East was arrested on the day Love died on an unrelated charge after he allegedly threatened to beat a facility employee with his cane. He was charged with communicating threats. East has a prior criminal history and has served time for assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill, assault on a female, and driving while impaired and intoxicated.

There is no word yet on whether David's House employees will be charged with trying to cover up the truth behind Love's death.

The Terry Law Firm is experienced in handling cases of nursing home abuse and neglect. Please contact us at 1 (888) 317-2525 or visit our website at www.nursinghomejustice.com.

Della Jarrett, 88, was a long-time resident of Sunnybrook Healthcare and Rehabilitation in Raleigh, North Carolina. On May 18, 2009, Ms. Jarrett was taken to the hospital for a gastric problem. Following protocol, facility staff called her daughter, Doris Weaver, to advise of the transfer. No one ever mentioned injuries.

When Doris Weaver walked into the Emergency Room at WakeMed, she saw dark bruises on her mother's face - from her temple down to her lower earlobe. Upset, Weaver demanded to know what happened. No one could tell her. Weaver had seen her mother last during the morning on May 16 and her face was fine. The injury occurred later that day and went unnoticed until 11:00 p.m. on May 16, when a nurse notated in the chart that Ms. Jarrett had facial bruising.

Suffering from dementia since her late 70s, Jarrett has been unable for years to roll over or walk. Weaver finds it unlikely that her mother injured herself in a fall. She thinks her mother was abused and reported it to the Raleigh Police Department. The incident continues to be investigated.

Sunnybrook officials have suspended an employee but deny any abuse occurred. The employee's suspension was information that had not been shared with Ms. Jarrett's family or the police. In fact, officials at the facility told state investigators that they could not determine the cause of the bruising.

The Terry Law Firm is experienced in handling cases of nursing home abuse and neglect. Please contact us at 1 (888) 317-2525 or visit us at www.nursinghomejustice.com.

We discussed Robert Stewart and his murderous nursing home rampage of March 29, 2009, in our previous blog.

According to recently released information, Stewart told a hospital nurse that he "does not remember anything" about his rampage through the nursing home where he killed eight innocent people. Search warrants and court documents say that investigators found ammunition on the kitchen table and a bed in Stewart's home, eight more guns, and an array of scopes and gun barrels. They also found pill bottles and several pieces of notebook paper with writing but have not released details of the writings.

At the hospital where he was taken after sustaining a wound in a shootout with police, he told a nurse that he had taken six "nerve pills" and did not remember anything else. Warrants allowed investigators to draw Stewart's blood "to determine if there is any controlled substance in his body".

Currently, Stewart remains in North Carolina's Central Prison, a maximum security facility for murdering seven elderly nursing home residents and one nurse.

Loner. Recluse. Bully. Coward. Mean. Jealous. Possessive. These are descriptive words used to describe Robert Stewart, the shooter at Pinelake Health and Rehabilitation Center who tragically killed eight people last week - none of them good.

Stewart's life, by many accounts, was not a happy one. He was known as a loner and was known to drink. His painting business was not very successful and he filed bankruptcy twice. He didn't like being told what to do. In 1995, he was invited to join a hunting club, which he did. Reportedly within a few years of joining, he had alienated all 20 club members. He was forced out of the club after threatening a member, Larry Allred. According to Tim Allred, Larry's son, "His exact words come to us. He wasn't scared of no damn Allred. He'd cut Larry Allred's guts out and watch."

Wanda Stewart knew Robert Stewart well. While she had been married to him since 2002, she also had married him back in 1983, when they both were teenagers. The marriage didn't survive; Wanda divorced Robert after three years because he was too possessive, too bossy, yelled too much, and drank too much. When they remarried in 2002, Robert tried to change and, in fact, he did change - for a short time. He visited his in-laws for Sunday dinner and spent holidays with them. But, over time, the number of visits dropped off until about a year ago, when he stopped coming. The Neals knew Robert and suspected he was drinking. Wanda was covering for him with her family by telling them he was hunting. Approximately one month ago, Robert Stewart pointed a pistol at Wanda Stewart's head and threatened to kill her. It was finally enough and she left him.

THE TRAGEDY

Michael Cotton arrived at Pinelake around 10:00 a.m. on Sunday, March 29, 2009, to visit his great-aunt, Helen McLeod. When he pulled up to the facility, he saw a man with a long-barreled gun in the parking lot, just standing there. Then, the man began shooting.

The first shot hit the back window of Michael Cotton's truck. The second shot took out the passenger side window. The third shot hit Michael Cotton in the upper left shoulder. He leaped out of his truck, which was still running, and ran into the facility yelling that a man was outside shooting. He was running down the hallway to his aunt's room when someone yelled, "He's coming in! He's got a gun!" Cotton went into a bathroom and called police. He could hear Stewart shooting as he walked through the facility.

Michael Gillis and his family arrived at Pinelake around 9:45 a.m. on March 29, 2009, to visit his grandmother. As he reached his grandmother's room, he heard nurse Jerry Avant yell over the intercom, "Lock it down!"

Gillis quickly herded his family into his grandmother's room and hid them in the bathroom. The doors did not lock, so he told his oldest son to hold them closed. Meanwhile, Gillis walked back to the hallway and saw Stewart walk toward the nurses' station, shooting.

Nursing home employees and Gillis began pushing patients into rooms and closing doors as Stewart roamed through the facility, shooting. Gillis ran back into his grandmother's room and held the door closed. He could hear Stewart shooting around the facility. Stewart was headed to the Alzheimer's unit, where his wife was behind the metal doors with her residents.

Gillis saw Corporal Garner enter the facility just after 10:00 a.m. and pointed him in the direction of the gunman. Garner confronted Stewart and Stewart fired, hitting Garner in the leg. Garner hit Stewart one time in the chest.

Jill DeGarmo, a medical technician and Jerry Avant's fiancee, was also on duty that morning in the Alzheimer's unit. After the shooting stopped, she found Jerry Avant, by all accounts a popular nurse dedicated to his job, on the floor surrounded by blood. He had been shot multiple times with a large caliber gun and had lost a great deal of blood. He died on the operating table.

THE AFTERMATH

Wanda Stewart was working March 29, 2009 as a nursing assistant at Pinelake. Her shift started at 7:00 a.m. and, that day, she was assigned to the Alzheimer's unit, a locked ward. Her family believes that Stewart went to the facility that day to kill his wife. If he couldn't kill her, then he was going to do the next best thing - kill the people she cared about, her residents.

Wanda Stewart's family reports that she feels guilty and ashamed about Robert Stewart's actions, as if she could have changed the outcome. Wanda Stewart herself told a TV reporter that she wished it was she who had died. Her son, Derek Luck, said, "She's just sad and she's lost. She don't know how to act. She's just walking dead."

Wanda Luck the wife of North Carolina nursing home gunman Robert Stewart, was working the morning of the rampage. She survived the attack by hiding in a bathroom inside a locked area for Alzheimer's patients. Stewart came close to her, but because he did not know the passcode for the security doors, Luck was lucky.

Authorities believe Wanda Luck was the likely target of Stewart's rampage. Luck left Stewart approximately one month ago and moved back to her family's property. Their relationship had been on-again, off-again over many years since their first marriage in the 1980's. Stewart's mother-in-law, Margaret Neal, said that Stewart had a tendency to grow violent. "He had a rage. It would just explode over everything. He would be good and the something would just set him off", she said.

Stewart has yet to provide any motive for his actions. Nicknamed "Pee Wee" by his hunting buddies, Stewart has not been interviewed by police and remains confined to a prison hospital recovering from a gunshot wound to his chest. His court-appointed attorneys have also not yet had the opportunity to talk with him.

Robert "Pee Wee" Stewart

The man suspected of killing eight people at a nursing home in North Carolina remains in a prison hospital after being shot in the chest by a police officer during his rampage. Robert "Pee Wee" Stewart, a six-foot-two, three hundred pound painter, entered Pinelake Health and Rehab in Carthage, North Carolina and opened fire on defenseless residents and employees inside, killing eight before being taken down by a bullet shot by a Carthage police officer.

Detectives investigating the shootings have been unable to conduct a complete interview with Stewart, but suspect the shootings were not random. They believe Stewart's rampage is connected to his recent separation from his wife, Wanda Luck, who works at the facility as a nursing assistant. The couple's relationship has been on and off over the years and in between other failed marriages. The couple first married in 1983, divorcing three years later. Over the years, they both were involved in other marriages before reuniting and remarrying in 2002.

Recently, Stewart had been telling family members that he had cancer and that he was preparing for a long trip and to "go away".

Stewart appeared in court on March 30, 2009 on eight counts of first-degree murder and one charge of felony assault of a law enforcement officer. He is scheduled to appear in court again next month.

Jessie Musser, 88, had only been a resident of Pinelake Health and Rehab in Carthage, North Carolina for six weeks. He suffered from Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases. He was blind, deaf, and confined to a wheelchair. Jessie died yesterday after being shot by a violent gunman who rampaged through his home. Now, Jessie's family faces the difficult task of explaining to his wife, who also lives at the facility and has dementia, that he is gone. His son-in-law, Jim Foster, said, "She was upset that they didn't bring him to see her yesterday. I don't know how we're going to break it to her."

Ellery Chisholm called her daughter just moments after the gunman marched into her room and pointed his gun at her roommate. She hid her face in her shirt so she couldn't see the gunman and he left the room without shooting. He began shooting down the hallway.

Carthage police are unsure why the gunman, now identified as 45 year-old Robert Stewart, went on the killing spree on March 29, 2009. He entered the facility around 10:00 a.m. armed with a rifle, a shotgun, and other weapons. He was not an employee of the facility and he did not appear to have been related to any of the residents. It is suspected that he targeted the facility because his estranged wife worked there. However, it is not yet known if she was working at the facility that day. In all, he killed seven residents and one nurse before being wounded by a police officer in a shootout. His victims were Tessie Garner, 88; Lillian Dunn, 89; Jessie Musser, 88; Bessie Hendrick, 78; John Goldston, 78; Margaret Johnson, 89; Louise Decker, 98, and Jerry Avent, 39. Jerry Avant, a nurse at the facility, was shot more than two dozen times. A doctor told his father that "he undoubtedly saved a lot of lives".

Stewart has been charged with eight counts of first-degree murder and a charge of felony assault of a law enforcement officer. Other charges are pending.

Residents have been removed from the 110 bed facility, including the residents with Alzheimer's disease.

For continuing information on this tragic story, monitor our website at www.nursinghomejustice.com.

Community Care, Inc., the owner of Charlotte Care Facility's Persons With Mental Illness unit in Charlotte, Iowa, has opted to close the facility, but will continue to operate its residential care facility.

Recently, Community Care, Inc. came under fire from the Iowa Department of Inspections and Appeals for two instances in which the Person's with Mental Illness (PMI) unit was fined $33,000. The PMI unit was fined $15,000 in June 2008 for an incident in which facility employees restrained a patient, who later died. In November 2008, the PMI unit was fined $18,000 for an incident in which a patient allegedly sexually harassed a female employee of Community Care who transported the resident to an appointment by herself. The fines were tripled because the violations had occurred previously in the past year. The facility was given a conditional license and was not allowed to take in any new patients.

The twenty year old facility is being closed because "the money is not available to us to adequately serve the people who desperately need this service", according to William Bonnes, Chief Executive Officer of Community Care, Inc. Bonnes said that the unit receives more acutely ill residents and more staff is required, which raises costs.

Annie Bell Scarboro was a known "wanderer" at Five Oaks Manor nursing home in Concord, North Carolina. She was not injured on May 22, 2008 when she escaped the facility and was found by the dietary staff on a ramp in the parking lot. Ms. Scarboro, an Alzheimer's patient, left the facility undetected by a back kitchen door. The staff took precautions by putting a "wander guard" bracelet on her and facility staff was to check her every 15 minutes. They also limited her wandering to areas where she could be monitored.

On December 18, 2008, Ms. Scarboro was seen walking around using her "merry walker" around 8:45 p.m., but by 9:00 p.m. no one could find her. The entire facility was searched, but Ms. Scarboro could not be found. At 9:20 p.m., a nursing assistant finally located her. She had fallen four feet from the loading dock outside the kitchen door and was lying on the ground with her "merry walker" was on top of her. She had a head laceration and "blood was running everywhere", but she was breathing and had a pulse. She was taken to the Carolinas Medical Center and later died.

How did Ms. Scarboro make it through three sets of doors into the kitchen area and onto an unlit loading dock undetected? Where were her caregivers?

The Department of Health and Human Services found that Five Oaks "failed to prevent a cognitively impaired resident from accessing the loading dock, resulting in a fall". Their recommendation was that the facility be fined $10,000 per day for a five-day period from December 18 through December 22, when the facility repaired deficiencies. Those deficiencies included a repairing a broken lock to the loading dock door, installing an alarm at the door, replacing bulbs to light the loading dock, and building a fence along the loading dock.

Five Oaks Manor is a one star nursing home, according to the new rating system instituted by The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid, which indicates a below average facility.

The Terry Law Firm is experienced in handling nursing home cases of abuse and neglect. Please contact us at 1 (888) 317-2525 or visit us at www.nursinghomejustice.com.

Forest View Rehabilitation Center in Durham, North Carolina closed in November 2008 following investigations in August and September 2008 that revealed very serious hygiene, health, and safety violations.

In one instance, fire ants were found in a resident's room and approximately 150 fire ants were crawling on the resident's body, causing eight inch welts from his arm pit to his waist. The fire ants had built a mound outside by a dumpster and an ant trail led from the dumpster, past a smoking area, into the resident's room.

At least two mentally impaired residents were sexually assaulted by other "alert and oriented" residents, one of whom carried a sexually transmitted disease. One of the aggressors in the incident was transferred to another facility. The physician of the other aggressor wrote, "Because he is a danger to an incompetent female resident and other patients we can no longer safely care for him in a safe environment for all of our residents." Yet, the administrator of Forest View, John Walder, blamed the victim in this incident alleging that the victim, who had been diagnosed with psychosis and other mental disabilities and often acted out sexually, initiated the sex.

Many of the deficiencies cited by the State occurred because nursing home staff did not follow designated procedures, but the failure began at the top of the hierarchy. The Director of Nursing stated that she was "unaware" of many of the major violations at the facility. In one instance, she allegedly stated she didn't know there were no doctor's orders for catheters for several residents. In another instance, after investigators discovered that there had been no registered nurse on duty for more than a day (law requires a registered nurse on duty for at least eight consecutive hours daily), the Director of Nursing was quoted as saying "she did not think about registered nurse coverage for the day".

Other serious violations uncovered at the facility were repeated falls by residents, residents with painful pressure sores not given any painkillers to alleviate their discomfort, and urinary tract infections contracted from dirty catheters - in at least one instance, the catheter was washed with the same cloth used to wipe feces from a person's rectum.

Amazingly, there was only one instance of documented disciplinary action - on a van driver. The driver was suspended and formally disciplined after a resident using a power wheelchair tipped over in his wheelchair and was lodged against a window in the moving van after the chair had not been properly strapped down. The facility's transport service was discontinued.

The facility was home to approximately 100 residents with a variety of mental and physical disabilities ranging from Alzheimer's disease to kidney disease to multiple sclerosis. The residents were transferred to other facilities for care.

Forest View was owned by Durham Manor, L.L.C. but managed by Epic Group. The building will be sold.

To view various survey reports on this nursing home, go to:

April 2, 2008 Survey, Part I
April 2, 2008 Survey, Part II
May 8, 2008 Survey

Muncie Grimes

No one knows what prompted the fight. All anyone knows is that 69 year-old Levi Montgomery is dead. The fight occurred at Countryside Villa, an 80 bed facility located in Stokesdale, North Carolina. Muncie Grimes, 60, has been charged with second-degree murder in Mr. Montgomery's death. No details about the incident are being released at this time. Inspectors from the state's Division of Health Service Regulation are investigating.

Reportedly, records from the Division of Health Service Regulation show that the facility has not received any fines for operating violations. The records show that there have been medication errors. The last facility inspection was performed in April 2008.